


Who Were You When The New Day Dawned

by candygramme, spoonlessone (mistress_mary)



Series: New Day [1]
Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Brainwashing, Dystopia, Homophobia, M/M, Theocracy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-16
Updated: 2013-08-16
Packaged: 2017-12-24 18:10:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 41,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/943063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/candygramme/pseuds/candygramme, https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistress_mary/pseuds/spoonlessone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the distant future, mankind fought, and by doing so lost their battle for the Earth. A select few of the richest people fled to Mars, leaving their home a toxic waste dump filled with chemicals and radiation. Now they are trying to reclaim the Earth, but they didn't count on the ones they left behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Who Were You When The New Day Dawned

**Fic title:** Who Were You When The New Day Dawned  
**Author name:** [](http://candygramme.livejournal.com/profile)[**candygramme**](http://candygramme.livejournal.com/) and [](http://spoonlessone.livejournal.com/profile)[**spoonlessone**](http://spoonlessone.livejournal.com/)  
**Artist name:**[](http://evian-fork.livejournal.com/profile)[ **evian_fork**](http://evian-fork.livejournal.com/)  
**Beta:** [](http://laurathelurker.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://laurathelurker.livejournal.com/)**laurathelurker**  
**Genre:** RPS  
**Pairing:** Jensen/Jared  
**Rating:** NC-17  
**Word count:** ~41,800  
**Warnings:** dystopian world, theocracy, brainwashing, homophobia  
**Summary:** In the distant future, mankind fought, and by doing so lost their battle for the Earth. A select few of the richest people fled to Mars, leaving their home a toxic waste dump filled with chemicals and radiation. Now they are trying to reclaim the Earth, but they didn't count on the ones they left behind.  
**Amazing artwork:** [ Ibrahil](http://evian-fork.livejournal.com/139205.html)

 

  
  


_Stay away from Abominations, lest they infect you, and you become Unacceptable to the Light._  


  
  


He sat up straight in his bed, another hoarse shout dying in his throat as he struggled to claw his way out of the nightmare. The sense of loss was palpable, but he really didn’t have any idea what the dream was about. All he knew was that the screaming in his ears spoke of panic, of pain, and of death. There was a man who invaded his dreams, a dark haired young man with moss-green eyes and a sad, frightened expression, but he could never quite work out who the man was or what he was trying to warn him about.

“Eric, are you okay? Honey, wake up. Eric!!” A gorgeous redheaded woman was shaking him vigorously. But he had no idea who she was; he felt no connection to her, just as he felt no connection to the name by which she was calling him. Panic overtook him for a moment, then everything slid back into place. He was Eric Brady, and the woman shaking him was his wife, Danneel. Odd that he had forgotten that. Even more odd that he had felt like a stranger in his own body, felt as if he were someone else.

“Yeah, Danni, I’m fine. It was just a dream,” he answered, trying to shake off the disturbing aftermath.

“Well, you’d better get a move on if you’re going to make the pickup for your run to Amarillo,” Danneel warned. “You’re supposed to be at the depot at 7:30 sharp.”

“I know, Danni.” He looked at the clock and saw that he hadn’t overslept after all. So why was Danneel harping about the time?

“Sometimes you worry me, baby,” she murmured, rolling to face him and pressing a long, sensual kiss to his lips.

“Sorry, honey. It was just a nightmare, that’s all.” Eric patted her back before sitting up and swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. “I don’t suppose it meant anything.”

“That’s the third one this week,” said Danneel, pressing up against his back so that the sudden heat of silk-clad breasts and belly burned against his bare skin.

“It’s nothing.” Eric turned his head to peck her on the lips and then rose to his feet to begin his day.

He went through his morning routine, first was Prayer for the Dawn in the tiny sanctorium built into his apartment, breakfast from the replicator, quick trip through the refresher and then into his uniform. Since he was going to be leaving the reclaimed zone, he made sure that his radiation sensor was fully cleared, and that his virus detector had a fresh charge. You couldn’t be too careful outside the Dallas dome. By the time he’d gotten to dispatch to pick up his load for Amarillo, he’d almost forgotten about the strange dream. Almost.

  
  


_Learn to love the Light, and despise your separation from it. Only then can you become enlightened._

He dealt with all of the red tape required to leave the reclaimed zone as a matter of course. It was something he went through almost every week, since he was one of the few drivers permitted to go out into the wastes beyond the dome. He didn’t even think to question the invasive medical tests and scans the state required. The Lone Star Colony was only looking out for his well-being, after all. Even the test where he was asked to kneel in a device that resembled nothing so much as the capsules he prayed in six times a day wasn’t unusual. In fact, it felt a lot like the pods in the public temples everyone visited each week on the Holy Day. Thinking about the temple reminded him that he’d be gone from Lone Star for several days and would miss his scheduled trip to the temple. He made a mental note to make sure to attend one of the extra sessions they held regularly, once he got back to Dallas.

Eventually his truck was loaded, and he was on his way, provisioned with a six day supply of the protein paste that he always ate when he was on a long journey. It didn’t taste nearly as good as the meals from the replicator, but at least it was safe from the viruses left over from the chemical and nuclear warfare mankind had waged on itself before the Divine had saved them and led them to Mars. He felt proud to have been chosen as one of those to help reclaim Earth for the Fellowship of the Divine Light. The Lone Star Colony was carefully situated to avoid most of the radiation that still lingered from the wars, but the bigger problem was the virus that plagued everything Outside the reclaimed zone. Clean water was especially scarce, but he’d been given enough to last a full ten days, even though he only expected to be gone for three. Any trip Outside the dome was unpredictable, and it was best to have more than enough supplies to stay safe in the wastelands. The Colony took care of its own, and Eric was grateful.

He carefully avoided the worst of the potholes as his truck rumbled along the deserted, crumbling highways of Old Dallas. He could see the hovercars buzzing about in their carefully choreographed dance as they took people from place to place. He’d be able to use a car once he got back, but the hovercars were unsuited to carrying the kind of heavy cargo that was loaded onto his truck. He didn’t understand the science of it, but wasn’t particularly curious. Besides, it was impractical for the cars to leave the dome anyway.

It was nearly noon as he approached the edge of the Colony. The tiny temple just off the road was a familiar stop. He didn’t even consider rushing his Prayer of Devotion to the Light in the private sanctorium inside, but he was pleased that the replicator was working to provide him with a final decent meal before he was limited to the tasteless paste in his provisions for the rest of his trip Outside. Pulling up at the gate to the dome, he readied his credentials to show to the Guardian at the crossing before he could leave the dome.

Nodding to the Guardian who manned the gateway, he made a reverent acknowledgement of the priestly insignia the man wore. “Brady, Eric, bound for Amarillo Outpost on a mission from the central depot.”

The Guardian nodded, examining Eric’s ID chip minutely and consulting his readout with critical eyes. “Walk in the Light, son,” he said at length. “We will keep the faith while you are gone.”

“The Light is my shield from all that is wrong,” responded Eric, the familiar invocation coming instantly to his lips. “I will carry it with me.”

“It’s a good enough day for traveling.” The Guardian seemed inclined to chat, and Eric felt a flash of irritation. He would have to take a shortcut through part of the Desolation in order to make Amarillo before the full Darkness. That was adding danger to his journey that he really didn’t need. All his life, he had been warned of the Desolation - the strange, twisted plants that grew there, and the Abominations that roamed it. He really didn’t ever want to meet an Abomination, and so far he never had. He’d heard some of the horror stories about them, and the very idea made his gorge rise. “With your permission, Guardian, I should leave. They are in need of my cargo at the outpost, and I should avoid the Darkness if I can.”

“Very well, son. Walk in the Light.” The Guardian made the sign of blessing and pushed the button that would cycle the gates to the dome, stepping back with a flourish as the airlock began to open. Putting his vehicle into gear, Eric slowly moved into the airlock and waited for the doors to cycle, releasing him to the barren landscape that was Outside.

As far as he could tell, not much was different Outside. The same deserted, crumbling highway, the same ruins of homes from Before, the same healthy looking foliage. But he increased his vigilance, knowing that appearances were deceiving. It would take him until well past Dark to reach his destination, where he would sleep in a hostel as others unloaded and reloaded his truck for his onward trip to Oklahoma City tomorrow.

Eric couldn’t help shuddering as the sun set over the plains. The cloudless blue of the sky grew darker as the sun sank, an orange ball fading to a dark salmon line across the horizon before disappearing entirely. He pulled himself back into his truck after his Prayer to the Right Hand Path, determined to get to Amarillo as quickly as possible. He’d been out after Dark before, and had never seen any of the Abominations the stories spoke of, but nightfall while he was Outside never failed to unnerve him.

He reached Amarillo with nothing more alarming happening than his nodding off and waking abruptly as his truck fell into a pothole bigger than the hovercars back in Dallas. Fortunately, the heavy duty semi-trailer truck climbed back out of the pothole as easily as it had fallen in. It was more comfortable and probably better for the suspension to avoid the craters where the asphalt had crumbled away, but it wouldn’t put his journey in jeopardy. Besides, the mechanics in Amarillo would check the truck over thoroughly, and send him off tomorrow in a new one if they had any doubts. The Colony looked after him, and Eric was grateful. Regardless, Eric had refocused on his task. There were more dangerous things than potholes Outside after Dark.

The outpost at Amarillo was only a handful of well-maintained buildings on the very edge of the crumbling ruin of a good sized city. Eric had been here many times, so the routine was familiar and calming. By the time his load was inspected and the paperwork complete he had pushed all thoughts of the Desolation to the back of his mind. His Prayer for the Return of the Light further soothed his battered nerves, and he was asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow in the spartan hostel room that was his for the night.

He never wondered what supplies the tiny outpost might need. He made this run at least two or three times a month, driving a fully loaded semi to Amarillo, and towing a different trailer on to Oklahoma City. He’d never even thought about looking into the trailers he hauled, even if he didn’t know what sort of trouble that would land him in. He trusted the Colony to know what needed to be where and when, and was just grateful that he had a job that suited him so well. Sure, the thought of what he might find Outside scared him, but he loved the time he had to himself. Others might pity him for his job taking him to the feared wasteland, but he found the harsh landscape and time to himself almost soothing. He’d have gone crazy if his job was Inside, where he’d never have a moment without dozens of people talking all the time. Solitude in the dome was discouraged, privacy at a minimum except at home, and there Danneel was always hovering. Not that he didn’t love spending time with her, of course he did, but he just liked to be able to hear himself think sometimes. The Colony understood that about him, and had provided him with the perfect job.

  
  


_Abomination can speak with fair words. Beware and measure your conscience against every fair sounding word._

The next morning, he was barely awake before he found himself on his way to his next stop in Oklahoma City. His caffeine allotment was never enough to wake him fully, and he stumbled through the familiar steps. He forced himself to be as attentive as possible through his Prayer for the Dawn, but lapsed back into his usual morning daze afterwards. The 45 minutes he was allowed in the exercise facility was just barely enough so that he didn’t feel unsafe driving the big rig on towards his next stop. But the thought of the Abominations that might be lurking, just waiting for his inattention to cause a mistake, was enough to bring him fully alert.

This stretch of road had obviously once been better maintained than the one between Old Dallas and Amarillo Outpost. Now, it was desolate and crumbling. But the occasional sign marked it as Route 66 or I-40. The only thing Eric knew about the civilization that had built the roads and cities that the Colony used as its foothold on the Earth was that gluttony and debauchery had led to its downfall. Sometimes Eric worried that his craving for time with his own thoughts was a sign of selfishness or heresy, but he tried not to think about that. Heresy was the worst sin against the Divine, with selfishness a close second.

It wasn’t until after his stop for his Plea for Acceptability Beneath the Light that anything seemed different from any of the other dozens of times he’d made this run. When he keyed the ignition to continue his journey, the engine made a sick-sounding attempt to start and then belched an ugly cloud of black smoke from the tailpipe. After that, nothing. He tried the on-board radio, and it refused to respond.

“Oh, Light!” The words were more an expletive than a prayer, and he paused for a moment, hoping that his muttered curse hadn’t been heard by the Darkness that always lurked in the wastelands. The Darkness would bring Abomination to him, and more than anything else, that thought terrified him. Murmuring a soft, fervent prayer, he studied his personal assistive device, calling up the emergency procedures. Finally he smiled in sheer relief.

He was glad he hadn’t panicked. It was simple. Consulting the procedures again to make sure, he fumbled around until he found the lever that tilted the passenger seat forward to access the emergency radio and quickly called in to base.

“Brady, Eric, bound for Oklahoma City with certified load 17-A. Engine’s cut out on the 40, and I’m not going to make it tonight.” He listened, hoping that the message was getting to where it was needed. Who knew what might be lurking in wait for a stranded traveler.

He’d almost given up when the radio crackled into life again, and the deep voice of his supervisor, Jeff, burst from the speaker. The message was not one he wanted to hear. “Sorry, Brady, all the drivers are out. Earliest I can get someone out there is going to be tomorrow, sometime in the afternoon.”

“Oh, Light!” Eric felt a chill run through him. He was more convinced than ever that Abominations would be lined up to savage him once the sun went down.

“Sorry, Brady.” The speaker didn’t sound particularly regretful. “It is what it is. Stay in the cab and lock your door. Don’t go out of the truck after Dark.”

“No danger of that,” muttered Eric to himself. “Thank you for the advice,” he said aloud. “I’ll be sure to keep the doors locked. I’m not anxious to experience too much of this Lightless wasteland.”

“Walk in the Light, Brady.” Jeff sounded vague, and Eric got the message that the conversation was over. There would be no further help for him before tomorrow. Taking a deep breath, he responded with a hasty, “You too, Jeff,” just as the power was cut. The radio squealed once before falling silent, leaving Eric feeling both frustrated and apprehensive.

  
  


Jeff had told him that they didn’t have another driver available to bring a tractor to replace his, and he more than anyone knew how true that was. People were scarce, and there were not many of the Righteous willing to abandon the safety of Mars to return to Earth and attempt to bring the devastated planet back to the Light. He knew that there was a driver expected back from Outside within the next day, and Jeff had promised Eric that he would be sent to take Eric and his cargo on to Oklahoma City. They would just push his tractor off to the side of the road and abandon it, of course. That was standard procedure. There were far more vehicles available than personnel, so the truck was a small loss. He heaved a sigh and decided to make the best of his predicament.

He was just starting his Prayer to the Right Hand Path when a noisy truck pulled to a stop next to him. This truck was nothing like his tractor and trailer affair. It was an old, unibody dump truck that sounded as if it had seen better days. As he looked up, frowning at the distraction, a very tall man unfolded himself from the driver’s seat. The newcomer was dressed in soft denim that had seen much better days, and his face was smudged with grease. Eric frowned as the other man approached, smiling inappropriately at him. That made Eric vaguely uncomfortable. It wasn’t precisely that happiness was a sin, but he was certain the Right Hand of the Divine would not approve of that level of happiness. The smile also set something in his gut tingling, although he thought he’d best not examine that feeling too closely.

“Hi,” the other man held his hand out to Eric. “I’m Jared.”

Eric stared at Jared’s hand for a moment before reaching out and placing his own hand against it as it seemed Jared expected. Jared’s smile broadened even further as he gripped and shook Eric’s hand in his own. Eric looked up (and up) into Jared’s smiling face and couldn’t help but tentatively smile back.

“Hello,” he answered cautiously. “I’m Eric.”

“Are you stuck out here? That sucks, man. Want me to give you a hand?” Jared didn’t wait for a response, but strode over to the front of the cab and pulled the cover off of the engine. Eric had never seen the inner workings of his truck before, but Jared seemed familiar with it, so Eric just watched as Jared fiddled under the hood. Perhaps Jared could get it running again, and Eric could finish his run.

“The battery’s flat, and I don’t have an extra,” Jared declared mournfully, straightening up at last and wiping the sweat from his forehead with an oily hand that merely added a few smudges to his already dirty face. “Besides, my guess is the alternator’s not working, and that would just drain another battery, even if I did have a spare.”

“There will be someone out tomorrow to collect me and my cargo. Thanks for your help, though.” Eric nodded to the other man and moved to resume his interrupted prayer.

“You can’t stay here! The mutant bunnies will get you!” Jared’s voice betrayed his genuine fear.

“Mutant bunnies?” Eric asked incredulously. “I’ve never heard of such a thing, and I’ve been making this run for years.”

“Seriously? They don’t tell you?” Jared sounded scandalized. “You’re safe enough in the daytime, but you’d better not be caught staying in one place after dark.”

Jared’s mention of the approaching dark reminded Eric that he still hadn’t said his prayer, and he worried that he wouldn’t be able to finish before the sun set. That prospect was much more alarming than this talk of mutant bunnies. “Have you already done your prayer? I was just going to …”

“No, man. I don’t …” Jared answered, trailing off slowly. “But you go ahead. I’ll stand guard.”

Eric wondered about the other man’s sanity, but he was more than happy to continue his interrupted prayer. He was nearly done when a loud blast broke his concentration. Perhaps there was more to this bunny threat than he’d thought... He shook his head and refocused on his prayer, allowing the ritual chanting to center him until he was finished. Then he grabbed his provisions and dove into Jared’s truck as Jared gunned the engine.

Outside, the day was fast fading into night, and long, purple shadows cast by the scrubby sage were slowly merging as the sun, blessed bringer of Light, said farewell to the Lone Star Colony and knelt in its own prayer for the morrow’s renewal.

“What about my cargo?” He asked breathlessly, afraid that the Abominations would somehow damage it. The loss of his vehicle didn’t matter, but the loss of the load he was transporting would not go down well with the Guardians he served.

“They shouldn’t bother it. It’s only humans that they come after. We think it’s something to do with our scent.”

Eric hadn’t eaten yet; he never ate his evening meal until after reciting his prayer. He reached into his provision bag and pulled out two servings of the paste and two measures of water. The least he could do was offer to share his meal. Jared sniffed at the food he held out to him, and wrinkled his nose distastefully, but his eyes got huge when he glimpsed the water.

“Do you eat that?” Jared asked incredulously, but then continued with a note of reverence in his voice. “Is that water? Clean, fresh water?”

“Yes, it’s pure water. Have some; I have plenty. Seven full rations plus almost half of an eighth. And the food isn’t that bad. It’s nourishing, even if it’s not as tasty as replicator meals.”

Jared reached eagerly for the water, but shook his head at the food. “Replicator? You mean you’ve never had real food?”

“What do you mean real food? This is real. And we should not have undue appreciation for our food. That leads to gluttony.” Eric said, quoting the Book of the Divine Light.

“Oh, man! You have no idea!” Jared looked carefully in all directions before stopping in the middle of the road. He reached back and pulled a carefully wrapped bundle from behind his seat. He unwrapped his prize and spread out the feast. Bread, cheese, slices of smoked meat of some kind, and a small pot of some sort of sauce. He spread the sauce on the bread and piled on meat and cheese before folding it and taking a huge bite and gesturing for Eric to have some.

Even cold, it smelled heavenly, more mouthwatering than anything Eric had ever eaten before. But he eyed it dubiously. The priests had always warned never to eat food that did not come from the Colony. Many things from Outside might appear fair, but be dangerous. “Are you sure it’s safe?”

“It’s totally safe! We grow our produce hydroponically with seeds saved from Before, and we cloned our livestock from DNA from Before. I’ve been eating our food all my life, and you can see how that’s worked for me,” Jared teased, and Eric felt that tingle in the pit of his stomach again which he resolutely ignored, trying to focus solely on the fact that Jared spoke of a people who were so far outside his experience as to be inconceivable. He’d have said impossible before, but here Jared was, incontrovertible proof. He instinctively knew that if the priests ever found out about them, the result would not be good. Eric, for the first time in his life, contemplated keeping something from them. And from Danneel. That too, was important, even though he knew he should trust his wife and partner with everything.

Tentatively he took the food, assembling it as Jared had but taking a much smaller bite. It was the most delicious thing he had ever tasted. No wonder the Book spoke of the dangers of gluttony. He could eat this all day, every day. He took another, larger and more enthusiastic bite and smiled back at Jared, who was grinning at him again. He deliberately ignored that tingle in his belly as he offered Jared another measure of water. He decided right then that he would insist that Jared take his remaining water rations when they got to Oklahoma City.

Jared’s truck was rusty and old; it smelled of oil and dust and the spicy scent of the paste they had spread on Jared’s bread. It bounced as they drove through the rapidly encroaching dusk, and with every rut and pothole it creaked. At first, Eric found himself clinging to the seat with white knuckles, so afraid was he that the whole truck would disintegrate and leave him exposed to those mutant bunnies Jared had mentioned, if not to some even worse Abomination.

“When you were talking about mutant bunnies before, you were kidding, weren’t you?” He could feel the unfamiliar food he’d just consumed with such relish trying to decide whether to stay down or to rise again in protest against the joggling and bouncing of the vehicle.

Jared laughed. “Believe me, Eric, I wish I had been.” He gestured outside the window of the truck. “Hold on; I’ll show you.” He brought the truck to a stop on the desolate highway and reached under the dash to fumble in his glove compartment, pulling out what looked to Eric suspiciously like the kind of weapon he’d only ever seen wielded by the Guardians.

Above them, the cold light of the nearly shattered moon shed a travesty of daylight on them. The huge, jagged crack across the surface of the moon from the nuclear rocket the Savages from Before had shot at - fortunately missing - the ship the Founders were using to escape the devastated Earth was very obvious when the moon was full, and Eric shuddered. The sight only added to the creepy atmosphere and he felt the urge to beg his companion to start the truck again and take them away from this hostile wilderness. Nobody ever stopped Outside the reclaimed zones after Dark and what must Jared be thinking? Eric must have been sweating, because Jared gave a low laugh.

“Don’t worry. Trixie here is bunny-proof - at least for the length of time we’ll be staying here. I wouldn’t want to camp out in her all night, but we’ll be fine for the few minutes we’re going to stop.” He flashed his very white teeth at Eric in yet another smile, and Eric swallowed uncertainly, worried without knowing what exactly he was afraid of. Except for the fact that they were _Outside after Dark_. But somehow Eric knew that wasn’t what worried him, and that in itself was yet another thing to be afraid of. Suddenly Eric understood how the other colonists didn’t get his desire to be alone with his own thoughts. He squirmed uncomfortably and was oddly comforted when Jared interrupted his madly tripping thoughts to continue.

“You’ll be okay, cross my heart,” said Jared, reaching to squeeze his knee. Eric twitched.

Outside the truck there was movement in the shadows. Eric flinched, unable to look away from whatever terrible thing might be revealed. “Oh, Light,” he whispered. “Abomination!”

“It’s only a bunny.” Jared gave a low laugh. “Quite a small one.”

The thing seemed to flow towards them, and then, as it approached beyond the sagebrush, the moon’s cold light revealed the creature that was creeping Eric out so badly. It was about the size of a large dog, and covered in tan fur. To Eric, it seemed somehow insignificant and harmless. He relaxed for a moment, about to turn to Jared to apologize for being so nervous. As he did so, the creature leapt at the truck, crashing into the window before rebounding and sliding down the side, claws scraping at the rusty metal with a screech, but not before Eric had taken note of rows and rows of teeth, and red eyes that glared hatefully from a face that would give him nightmares for Light knew how long.

  
  


“C...Can we go now?” he said, huddling away from the window as the bunny backed off to take a second leap. Behind it, he could see several more approaching. Jared didn’t say anything, merely setting the engine in motion once more and pulling away. “You think they’d have been able to get me in my truck if I’d stayed where I was?”

“Hell, yeah.” Jared gave him a concerned look. “That one was just a baby. When you get a bunch of adults trying, they can batter a vehicle enough to bend it out of shape. You’d have been rabbit food before morning, for sure.”

“Oh, Light save me,” whispered Eric. “I would have been dead.” He frowned. Jeffrey had condemned him to death without even blinking. Maybe the dispatcher hadn’t actually realized that these Abominations lived out here, but he had been told to stay in his truck. That was probably just what he was told to say. No one Eric knew had ever so much as seen an Abomination, so he was sure they just passed on what was popularly thought to be the prudent course of action. “You saved my life. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” grinned Jared, and that disturbing effect he was having on Eric made itself known yet again. He shivered, feeling something inside him tighten and glow, and cleared his throat, tugging nervously at his collar. “Dude, if you’re too warm, shed a layer or two. The A/C doesn’t work too well, and I’m used to it, but when you’re driving a big rig like yours you get spoiled.”

Nodding, Eric unzipped his uniform jacket and wriggled out of it, revealing well-muscled arms that strained the short sleeves of the t-shirt he wore beneath it. He sighed with relief as the truck picked up speed, and he could no longer see the ominous shadows moving out there in the dark. Turning to Jared, he frowned. “Big rig?” he queried. “You mean the tractor?”

“Yeah, I guess. What’s going to happen to it? Will they tow it home to repair?” Jared flicked a glance at Eric’s arms and raised his eyebrows at the curious mark that was visible on the inside of Eric’s wrist.

Oblivious to the scrutiny, Eric shook his head. “No, they’ll just push it off the road and leave it. There are many tractors, but mechanics are few, and they need to move the cargo far more than they need to remain out in the wastelands tinkering with something that obviously hasn’t found favor in the Light. They wouldn’t risk a good mechanic out here anyway.”

“And this?” Jared reached to trace a finger across the pink, tattooed triangle that covered the inside of Eric’s left wrist. “Is this a symbol of your favor in the Light?”

“I don’t...” Eric looked puzzled. “It’s just a mark. I think I’ve always had it.”

Nodding as if that satisfied his curiosity, Jared drove on and the two of them lapsed into a companionable silence that continued until Eric could see that they were approaching Oklahoma City.

Pulling up outside the depot which served as the outpost for the Lone Star Colony, Jared reached under his seat and extracted a well-used journal. Setting it down between them, he murmured that he would need to enter the mileage into his logbook before he went about his business. Eric nodded, staring at the symbol that was embossed on the leather cover of the book. It was a circle that had been divided into two halves by a curling line, and finer lines revealed that one side of the divide seemed like a mountain, while the other looked like water. It seemed familiar to him, although to his knowledge he had never seen it before

“Thank you for... for everything.” Eric had pulled out his personal assistive device to make a note of the time of their arrival, and Jared reached for it, swiftly calling up his list of contacts and adding his own name and number before handing it back to him.

“You’re welcome. The miles go by much faster when there’s someone with me to chat to.” He put his hand on Eric’s shoulder and indicated the PAD that was in Eric’s hand. “If you need to remember some time, give me a call, all right? I can help you.”

“Remember?” Eric frowned as he hopped down out of the cab. “Keep the water, by the way. I owe you a lot more than that for rescuing me, but that will have to do.”

“You’ll know if you ever need to remember,” murmured Jared, watching Eric readying himself to summon the Guardian and go into the depot. Then, more loudly as Eric reached the portal, “And I can’t possibly accept the water, it’s too valuable!”

“Okay, but of course you must keep the water. It’s the least I can do.” Eric raised a hand in farewell. “Walk in the Light, Jared.”

With that, Eric rang the bell at the door and then, as the Guardian opened it to him, proceeded inside, leaving the night behind him, and Jared with it. Eric tried to put thoughts of the big man out of his mind, but they persisted, long after his Prayer for the Return of the Light.

  
  


  
  


_Eat and drink sparingly, and do not think too much about the pleasures of the flesh. The Darkness is tempting, but we walk in the Light._

When Eric drove out the next day in a brand new tractor to return for his cargo, he found that the tractor he’d left behind as unserviceable had disappeared, leaving only tire tracks in the dusty roads, although his cargo was still all present and correct on its trailer. It didn’t take long for him to hook up the trailer to its new prime mover, even though he was a little distracted by the thought of the Abominations he’d seen from the safety of Jared’s truck, and he was soon on his way to complete his mission and deliver the cargo to Oklahoma City.

Eric felt slightly guilty for letting the dispatchers think that he’d left his rations in his truck when he’d fled from the Abominations, but he’d needed to replace them and he knew they kept stockpiles at the depot. He hadn’t even considered explaining about the mutant bunnies; that would have resulted in an Inquisition, and he’d heard enough stories about those to make him fearful for life. Besides, no one had ever given him a thorough description of Abominations. He’d never known of anyone that had actually seen them. Maybe these bunnies were the Abominations, or perhaps there was more than one type. He was certain that they would qualify! Whatever the case, he was sure it hadn’t been a sin not to clarify what sort of Abomination had driven him from his truck. He let his ponderings about the nature of mutant bunnies and Abominations distract him from the more troubling thoughts about disclosing what had actually happened to his water rations as he continued on the familiar routes.

Two days later he was home in Dallas, safe again under the protective dome and relaxing after having finally completed all the post-voyage testing. He was tired and a little resentful of Jeff’s attitude towards him once he’d checked in at the depot to pick up new orders. It was apparent that Jeff was surprised to see him, although after his initial start he had concealed it well. He was given the day off, instructed to go to the temple to give thanks for his deliverance, and ordered to return the following day for work.

A day off was a blessing, thought Eric as he made his way along the sidewalk towards the main temple. The building was tall and imposing, constructed of gleaming, cream colored limestone polished to a high shine. Topped by four minarets made from crystal blocks that reflected the light, each one cunningly angled to respond to the sun’s rays at different times of the day so that the city was bathed in colored lights from dawn until sunset.

Eric had lived here all his life, but he still drew in an awed breath as he stepped into the piazza that surrounded the entrance to the temple and was painted with the reds and golds that bathed the steps that led up to the penitents’ gate.

As he reached the gate and knelt in the doorway, awaiting the call to enter, he thought back over the events of the past 48 hours. Jared, tall, sinewy and brown as a berry, floated before his inner eyes. He wondered idly why a man who was obviously an Unacceptable and therefore profane should exercise his thoughts as he did. For sure, he had saved Eric’s life, and for that Eric was grateful, but he knew that in Jared he had beheld everything that the Guardians had warned him about. He didn’t pray; he was familiar with Abominations; he ate unclean food - Eric was certain that the food had been unclean, because it had been so _good_ \- and his openly happy nature had proven disconcertingly seductive. Eric needed to confess and do penance for finding him pleasant. Life just didn’t work that way, and Eric walked in the Light.

He was left to kneel for a long time. Head bowed, Eric watched the colors crawl across the steps as the sun advanced and the gold that had bathed him turned to green. He fell into a reflective trance, brooding about his experiences and deciding how and what to confess. When the gong sounded, and the Guardian Gatekeeper’s mellow voice required him to enter the temple and be shriven, he found that he’d knelt for so long that he was at first unable to rise to his feet. When he did eventually succeed in rising and tottering inside the temple, the pain from his stiff limbs brought tears springing beneath his eyelids.

He followed the light that would lead him to his confessor and was directed into one of the empty capsules. As it closed around him, he reached to place his hand into the Terminal of Truth and began to recite the penitent’s prayer to the Light.

“Have you sinned?” The Guardian’s voice was gentle, but Eric knew that beneath the gentle delivery was a will of iron, and that he would end up telling him all the things he believed were transgressions.

“I think so,” murmured Eric. “I strayed from the Light.” He felt the tingle and chime through his fingertips as the Terminal registered his truth. “I... I saw Abomination.”

“Did you touch it?” His mind flickered to Jared again. Jared had touched him, but Jared was not an Abomination. He was Unacceptable, but plainly human without discernible disfigurements. Eric brushed to one side the way he had felt when Jared had touched him.

“I did not... I wouldn’t... It was beyond the window, but I could feel its hatred. It would have killed me if it could.”

“Why did you not kill it?” The voice was louder, accusing. Eric bit his lip.

“I... had no weapon, and I was afraid.” The tingle was stronger this time, demonstrating Eric’s truth. “I am ashamed. I should have killed it,” he murmured and bowed his head.

“You are a fallible human, Eric.” The Guardian soothed. “Is that all your transgression?”

“I ate his food. I should have refused it, because... because it was proscribed, but he urged it on me, and I was...” Eric’s voice trailed off.

“What were you, Eric?” The Guardian’s voice was a silken purr, and Eric’s gut clenched.

“I was tempted,” he whispered. The chime was soft, his hand tingled, and then as the Guardian administered his punishment he felt as though it was on fire. The pain grew until he was biting his lip to avoid screaming, his eyes screwed up in agony.

“You must remain strong in the face of the Unacceptable, Eric. You will fast now until tomorrow’s Light is brightest, drink only water and reflect on the poisons you have put into your body.”

“I will, Guardian,” said Eric through gritted teeth, and the pain suddenly ceased.

“Walk in the Light, Eric Brady,” murmured the Guardian.

“The Light is my shield from all that is wrong,” responded Eric as the capsule opened and he was released. Turning, he bowed his head towards the Guardian Inquisitor, and was gestured away.

  
  


_The Light abhors the unclean and the imperfect. You must pray, fasting to remain acceptable to it._

He was quiet as he made his way back home to his apartment, reflecting on the things he should have confessed but hadn’t. Guilt pricked at him, but he was glad he had succeeded in keeping much of his experience from his Guardian Inquisitor. He flexed his right hand, remembering the pain he’d been made to endure. The hand looked perfectly healthy, not the blackened husk he’d expected to see when he’d been allowed to take it from the Terminal.

Danneel was watching a senso when he arrived, and she looked up with a smile as he walked past her to the ‘fresher, bending to kiss her as he passed. “Did you get checked out?” she asked him, muting the sound on the senso wall so he could hear her.

“Sure did. Confessed and was shriven and everything. I’m to fast until tomorrow noon,” he murmured.

“Oh, honey. We were going to have soysteak tonight. I’ll have to re-program the replicator.” She rose to her feet with a sigh and went over to the gadget she’d mentioned, stabbing at the buttons as if the machine had done something to offend her. “There. No soysteak for you. I hope you don’t think that I’m going to deprive myself, just to support you?”

“No, Danni. I wouldn’t do that to you.” He shook his head and sighed, then headed off to his office to update his journal. Emptying his pockets into the desk tidy, he sat down and reached for the key that unlocked the drawer in which he kept his journal.

Writing about his experiences out in the Desolation was a cathartic experience for Eric. His mind kept going back to the curious symbol he’d seen on the front of Jared’s journal, and finally he sketched it out in his own, tracing the lines lovingly onto the lined paper as though he knew its meaning. Documenting the trip was a labor of love, and he described the experiences as fully as he could, wanting to hold onto them forever. He sat, remembering the taste of the food Jared had given him, and got that odd, fluttery feeling in his gut again. Frowning, he finished up his account with a brief description of his visit to the temple for cleansing and closed his journal.

Danneel had always teased him about keeping his diary on paper rather than electronically, but to Eric it was relaxing, and on paper he knew that his private thoughts would remain private, immune to the prying that he suspected went on with the Guardians. Finally, looking down at the page he’d just completed, he noticed that he had idly doodled the symbol again at the bottom of his entry. He smiled and shook his head at that. Strange how the thing seemed so familiar when he’d never seen it before.

Shrugging, he rose to his feet, put his journal back into the drawer and locked it, then went back to where Danneel was waiting to share the Prayer to the Right Hand Path with him.

  
  


_The Light sees all. Let those who stray from the path beware._

Eric dreamed that night. He was running to meet someone, a young man with dark hair and laughing eyes, had reached to greet his friend when he was seized. Unknown men moved through his dream, dragging them both to a room that was full of harsh light and stainless steel. He was afraid, powerless, the knowledge that something terrible was going to happen confirmed a moment later when he heard a shrill scream that tapered off in a bubbling wail and then silence. He woke with a gasp, sweat standing out on his brow, and sat upright, chest heaving. Danneel, sprawled by his side, opened her eyes lazily and raised herself onto one elbow.

“Bad dream again?” she asked, frowning.

He looked down at her, unable to speak yet as he tried to control the tremor in his limbs. Nodding, he bit his lip.

“What was it this time, honey?” she asked. “That man again?”

“I... I don’t know.” Eric paused, shuddering as he heard the terrible scream again in his mind. “They hurt him. I couldn’t see what they did. I couldn’t help him.”

“It was just a dream.” Danneel sat up, one lacy shoulder-strap slipping down over her pale shoulder as she leant in to kiss him. “You’re here with me now, and I know just the thing to take your mind off it.”

Somehow, Eric couldn’t bring himself to respond. He felt shaken, afraid, anything but horny. Finally he kissed her back and patted her hip. “Sorry, baby. I’m just not...”

She pouted at him, but finally nodded and rolled to kick her legs over the edge of the bed. “You’ll feel better after some breakfast,” she murmured. “I’ll go and get some started. Don’t forget, you missed supper. That’s probably what gave you bad dreams.”

“I’m not to eat ‘til noon,” he snapped, heading for the ‘fresher to wash. “I’ll get something from the refectory at the depot.” It didn’t take him long before he was washed, clean shaven and dressed in his uniform, ready to leave for work. He called a goodbye to Danneel as he left and set out for the transit station. He was on his way down the escalator when he reached into his pocket and discovered that his transit pass wasn’t there.

“Damn!” He turned to look at the top of the escalator. It was no use, there were far too many others on it to attempt a run back to the top. Sighing, he allowed it to convey him down to the bottom and raced to the one that would carry him back to the top.

Letting himself back into the apartment, he made for his office, to where he believed that he’d left his pass the night before. He was about to enter the room when he heard Danneel’s voice speaking to someone.

  
  


“Yes, Jeff, I really think he needs re-educating. His conditioning is slipping. It’s most unfortunate that he was able to meet up with that Unacceptable out in the wasteland.” Eric froze. Tiptoeing cautiously forward, he peered around the edge of the door. He couldn’t see who she was speaking to on the viewscreen, but he could see that she had his journal in her hands, and he didn’t like the sound of ‘re-education’ at all. He backed up, and re-opened the door, slamming it noisily and standing just inside the doorway.

“Danni? Have you seen my transit pass? I think I left it home.” He heard her shuffling something, knew she was replacing his journal, and waited for her to come back out of his office.

“It’s here, silly.” She emerged from the office holding the card, and he gave her a relieved smile.

“Thanks, baby,” he murmured, bending to kiss her. “Gotta run or I’ll be late.” He succeeded in maintaining the smile until he was back outside once more, and then he began to run in earnest.

He had no idea where he could run to, but he knew he had to get as far away from his apartment as he could. He knew that he didn’t want to be re-educated even though he had no idea what that might entail, and he had begun to suspect that Danneel didn’t actually have his welfare at heart. He knew that he was right to feel that way when a troupe of Guardians began to ascend on the escalator to his right. One of them spotted him and began to gesticulate, while the entire group began to shove their way to the top of the escalator, yelling at him to stay where he was.

Eric had no intention of staying where he was. He took off running down the escalator and flung himself into the corridor that led to the transit point. Shoving his way onto the first train that pulled into the station, regardless of the destination, he held his breath, waiting for his pursuers to catch up with him. He felt almost dizzy with relief once the train pulled away and into a tunnel, just as his pursuers arrived onto the platform.

Unsure what his next move should be, Eric rode the train to the terminus and then stumbled out of the station, wondering what he was going to do. He was at a loss, and slumped down on a bench to try and work out exactly how he’d gone from being a wage slave to a wanted man in what seemed to him to be the blink of an eye. Suddenly, Jared’s last words came back to him. Give me a call if you ever need to remember... Fumbling for his PAD he paged through it until he found Jared’s number and activated the call.

“Padalecki Scavenging.” The familiar voice ignited that sudden, shivery feeling in Eric’s gut, and he closed his eyes, calling up the memory of brown skin, glossy chestnut hair and almond eyes that gleamed with humor.

“Jared?” His voice was hoarse. He was scared, but he didn’t quite know why. “It’s Eric Brady. I... I think I’m in trouble, and I don’t know what to do. The Guardians.”

“Whoa, Eric. Hold up a minute. You telling me that you’re being taken by the Guardians?” Jared’s usually genial voice was urgent.

“Not exactly. I ran away before they could...” He didn’t have time to complete his sentence. Jared butted in.

“Listen to me, Eric. You have to stay out of their clutches. You know that you’re bugged? Your position is monitored all the time. If you want to escape, the first thing you have to do is get rid of the bug, and that’s going to hurt.”

“Okay. Anything. How do I get rid of it?” Eric heard another train arriving down below in the station and got to his feet, running away into the maze of offices and stores that comprised this part of Dallas.

“You got a knife?”

“Yeah.” Of course he had a knife. He took it out of his pouch and opened it. “Now what?”

“First of all, you need to hang up. Once you get rid of the bug, call me back, okay? The bug is going to be located behind your right ear. Feel behind it, and you’ll find a lump. Cut it out and smash it. Then call me back.”

Cutting the connection as he’d been told to do, Eric fumbled behind his ear and identified the small lump Jared had told him would be there. Taking a deep breath, he sliced into it and probed with the point of his knife. It hurt horribly, but after several minutes of poking and prying, he succeeded in extracting the small, silvery chip. His hand was covered in blood, and blood had run down his neck to drench the collar of his jacket. He cast around for somewhere to put the chip and then laid it down on the concrete ground and struck it repeatedly with the hilt of his knife until it broke into two halves, each of which looked as dented and mangled as possible. Throwing the pieces as far away as he could, he took to his heels and ran, noting that he was beginning to hit the ruins of Old Dallas as he went.

Finally, gasping for breath, he dashed into the dilapidated shell of what looked to have been a store, once upon a time. As soon as his heart had stopped trying to burst through his chest, he dialed Jared’s number again.

“Are you clear of bugs?” Jared sounded impatient, and Eric nodded, sinking down to sit on the cracked concrete of the floor.

“It hurt like...” Eric sought for a word that expressed his thoughts but wasn’t in fact on the list of profanities the Guardians didn’t allow. He couldn’t find one. “It hurt,” he said, finally. “My clothes are all bloody.”

“I’m sorry.” Jared sounded as though he might be smiling, and Eric ground his teeth. He never seemed to get any sympathy, and it seemed that Jared was no better than Danneel in that regard. “Where are you, exactly?”

“I’m in Old Dallas... ummm... Somewhere.” Eric ventured a look out of the door, searching for any landmark. There was a road sign on the corner that read ‘Ripley Street’ visible above the shell of a burnt out truck, and as he read it out Jared fell silent for a moment. When he came back on the line he sounded much more efficient.

“Okay, listen up. I’ve sent a friend to come find you. His name is Chad, and he’s going to help you get somewhere safe until I can come and get you, all right?” He paused again. “Chad will take care of you. Just don’t be crying ‘Abomination’ on my friends, okay? They’re trying to help you. Once I get there, you and I will have a good, long talk.”

Jared spent a few more minutes telling Eric how he would recognize Chad when he arrived and then told him it would be another 20 minutes before he would get there.

Once Jared had ended the call, Eric spent a few minutes panicking as he contemplated the situation he’d found himself in. He was considering giving up and going back home when he heard someone calling his name.

Eric turned towards the voice to see a man climbing out of a hole in the crumbled concrete that had once been a city street. He appeared to be just a little shorter than Eric himself, with fair hair and squinty blue eyes. He was dressed in ragged denim jeans and a faded blue hooded pullover sweatshirt. Once he saw that he had Eric’s attention, he gestured towards the hole he’d just come from, clearly expecting Eric to climb in.

Eric was grateful to find metal rungs protruding from the concrete lining the walls of the shaft that he found himself descending. The other man followed, dragging some sort of cover over the hole in the street, blocking out the light. Eric blinked rapidly until he could see a faint light coming from somewhere below him. It didn’t take long for his eyes to adjust so that he could see where to put his hands as he climbed down the ladder. He tried not to think of the weight of the earth above his head as he made his way steadily into the dim depths.

Once he reached the bottom, Eric found himself in a concrete tunnel that looked to be big enough for a hovercar to pass through. The blond scrambled down behind him and took off down the tunnel with barely a glance. Eric reluctantly followed behind, but couldn’t help but ask questions of the man he wasn’t even sure was the friend Jared had been referring to.

“Hey, man,” Eric called finally. “Slow down. Who are you? Where are we going?”

“I’m Chad,” the man answered, not slowing down. If anything, he was speeding up. “Jared sent me. And it’s not safe to talk here. It’s certainly not safe to stay here.”

Eric was slightly encouraged by the familiar name, the name Jared had given. But what did he even really know about Jared? Why was he dropping everything he’d ever known to go meet this man that he’d only ever met once? Why did he trust him? And this Chad fellow just felt a bit … off, a little sleazy. He was certainly not someone he’d have even talked to in his former life, much less have trusted to convey him to safety. Nevertheless, Eric followed him through the crumbling tunnels, because, for the life of him, he couldn’t think of any other solution to his problems.

His trust was borne out, at least a bit, when Eric heard heavily booted feet on the metal steps in the shaft from the street, and then running down the tunnel behind them. Beams of light banished the last of his distrust and he took off running after his guide. Chad darted down this tunnel, then that one, his path meandering all over the place until even Eric, with the good sense of direction that had always served him well Outside, had no idea which direction they had come from.

Finally, Chad came to a stop, breathing heavily. He took a long drink from a canteen he pulled from a knapsack before offering some to Eric. Eric felt slightly guilty for the satisfaction he felt at being more fit than the other man, resolving to confess his pridefulness at the next opportunity. The realization that he’d likely never be shriven again frightened him.

“Who are you?” he asked again warily. “Where are you taking me?”

“Relax, dude.” Chad responded, exasperation tinging his voice. “I’m taking you to meet Jared, okay? Unless you’d rather go back to those nice men. I’m sure they’d be more than happy to escort you to the temple for re-education.”

That shocked Eric a bit. He’d not yet associated the term “re-education” with the temple, the priests or the Guardians. His mind skittered from topic to topic wondering what that meant about Danneel, Jeff, his buddy Ty from the pub and even the Divine without settling on one thought for long enough to come to any conclusions. All he knew was that he didn’t want to be re-educated, and it seemed that returning to the life he knew would steer him straight down that path. Everything except Jared. Unaccountably, that thought lifted his spirits. No matter how strange this turn his life had taken might be, he was looking forward to seeing the tall young man again.

“No, no,” murmured Eric. “I don’t want to go back.”

“Good, that’s good. Let’s just shove on then, all right?” Chad took off again, making several more turns before coming to a large round metal door set in the side of a tunnel. He rapped on the door in a complicated pattern before turning a wheel set in the door and pulling it open.

A wall of sound assaulted his ears as soon as Chad opened the door. Music, but like nothing Eric had ever heard before. Heavy bass rhythms and energetic melodies, nothing at all like the hymns and simple rhymes he’d thought of as music before. It took him a good long while to make out the lyrics, and then he was sure he’d blushed from head to toe. Sex was a duty to be performed, a part of his marriage vows, not something to be … celebrated or enjoyed as the song seemed to be suggesting.

“Dude! You should see your face!” Chad took one look at him and burst out laughing. Eric glared at him and blushed impossibly redder. Chad got control of himself enough to stop laughing long enough to say, “Come on. This way. I’m pretty sure Jared will have told them to expect us.”

As they made their way through what seemed to be a pub, Eric tried not to recoil from the Abominations and proscribed activities everywhere he looked. A man and a child holding hands, one side of their face normal, the other looking as if the skin had just melted away, eyelid drooping so that Eric wasn’t sure they could even see out of the affected eye. A woman with a single large eye in the center of her forehead, faceted like an insect’s. People in varying stages of dress and undress, some quite normal looking, others with extra limbs, fingers, eyes, ears. One woman had her top completely open to display three breasts. She appeared to be inviting anyone who liked to touch her. Eric’s thoughts were suddenly filled with the way that the priest at the temple had questioned him about the Abomination in the Desolation. _Did you touch it?_ the priest had asked. Eric shuddered and stuffed both his hands in his pockets as he went.

There was a dance floor that Eric recognized from the one time Ty had convinced him to go into the back room of their local pub. Eric shuddered as he remembered the pain of being shriven when he had confessed that sin. But he’d never seen anything like what was happening on this dance floor. Men and women were dancing together, grinding as if they were trying to actually have sex through what little clothing they were wearing. Men grinding against women, against other men, women sliding their bodies against other women, whole groups bucking and thrusting against each other, seemingly randomly. Eric was sure he saw at least one couple actually having intercourse on the dance floor before he managed to drag his gaze away.

Chad was laughing openly at him again, but kept leading him through the throng. Finally he ducked inside a doorway and pulled the door shut behind him, blocking out most of the noise. Eric sighed in relief only to realize he’d gone from the frying pan into the fire. Two people were in the room, a man kneeling at the feet of another … man. The person standing had his shirt flung wide, revealing ample breasts, and his penis was pumping steadily in and out of the mouth of the man kneeling in front of him. Eric’s brain refused to process the concept of one person with both a penis and very feminine looking breasts, so it chose to focus instead on the idea of a man thrusting his penis into someone else’s mouth. The latter was only slightly more plausible to his mind than the former, and he blushed furiously again as he turned his back on the couple. He’d never have even thought of asking Danneel to do something like that for him, and that another man would … Unaccountably, he thought of Jared and flushed even more fiercely.

“Jesus, Chad!” the man/woman/person exclaimed. “You’ve got to learn to knock!”

“I’m sorry, Mike,” Chad said, not at all apologetically. “It’s just Eric … Jared told me to bring him here, and he was so freaked out by everything out there …”

“That you thought you’d bring him in here without knocking?” a new voice offered mildly when Chad stumbled in his explanation. “Eric, is it? I must apologize for our _friend_. Jared said you might be coming, but we never dreamed it would be so quickly. This must all be a bit of a shock to you. I’m Tom, and this is my partner Mike. Welcome to our home.”

The comforting tone had Eric turning around again, relieved to see the person had fastened his shirt and was tucking himself into his trousers. The other man, Tom, was holding out his hand much like Jared had when he’d first greeted Eric, so Eric shook it and said politely. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Sorry about that,” the one who must be Mike said. He glared at Chad and nodded, an obvious dismissal. “But we had no idea you’d be coming so soon. Wasn’t it just a few days ago that Jared dropped you in Oklahoma City? Did something happen?”

Chad’s departure left Eric feeling oddly unsettled. Every time he turned around, things changed on him again. Not that he’d particularly enjoyed Chad’s company, but he was the one Jared had mentioned to him. Still, Tom and Mike seemed nice enough, even if Mike was obviously an Abomination. Mike and the others he’d seen out in the bar were much closer to what he’d imagined when he thought of Abominations than the mutant bunnies he’d encountered with Jared. But surely all of them were deformed by exposure to the radiation and chemical toxins rampant Outside the reclaimed zones.

Eric felt vaguely guilty when he remembered Jared’s admonition over the phone not to call his friends Abominations. At least he hadn’t said it out loud. That didn’t make him feel much better, but it was all he had. He resolved to try to school his thoughts more carefully, before realizing that that was Fellowship way of thinking, and that Jared likely didn’t expect him to grow accustomed to all the changes going on around him immediately. Eric resolved to try his best not to offend these people who were so kindly taking him in, and to be a bit easier on himself and his own thoughts while he was getting used to his new life.

Eric wondered briefly what would happen to him, or to any potential offspring he might have now that he’d run from the Colony. Run from those that had always kept him safe, and warm and fed. His instinct to run as fast as he could back to familiar territory died as he remembered Danneel’s words, ‘He needs re-education. His conditioning is slipping’. Going back wasn’t an option so he mentally squared his shoulders and answered his hosts.

He realized his hosts had been patiently awaiting an answer to their question while he was woolgathering. He thought back to remember what they’d asked. Oh, right. “Danni … my … Umm, my wife. I overheard her talking to someone on the comm. She said something about re-education and conditioning slipping and I just ran.”

“Good call,” Tom said sympathetically. “I didn’t have enough sense to run and they had me in the center of the temple with probes and needles stuck everywhere. I was screaming my head off by the time Richard and Mike got me out of there.”

“I had at least a little bit of warning,” Eric said. “If my truck hadn’t broken down out there and Jared rescued me, I wouldn’t have had any idea what to do when I overheard Danni. I almost panicked anyway. I barely remembered what Jared had told me.”

“It’s always easier to extract someone from the edges of the zone rather than the temple itself,” Mike nodded, smiling at his lover affectionately. “But we’ve monitored that room 24/7 ever since we figured out what they do there and these days we get virtually everyone out before the process goes too far.”

“What room? What process?” Eric was almost afraid to ask. “What did she mean by ‘conditioning’? And who are ‘we’?”

“The room is in the center of the temple.” Mike answered, his arm around Tom’s shoulders comfortingly. “That’s where they do the re-education.”

“But why? I don’t understand,” Eric asked forlornly, still wishing he could have his life back. He just wasn’t prepared to let them … He didn’t know what he was running from, but he felt certain he didn’t want it.

“Re-education is like … indoctrination, brainwashing,” Mike started to explain before Tom stopped him.

“Maybe we should wait and let Dick explain,” Tom suggested, rubbing at the inside of his left wrist absently. Eric noticed a small mark that looked much like the one on his own wrist. Something about the mark tugged at his memory, but the harder he tried to remember, the more it slipped away.

“You’re probably right,” Mike deferred to Tom’s judgment.

“But, who is Dick? Why can’t you tell me?” Eric protested.

“Richard Speight is our leader. We call him Dick. And he knows more about re-education and conditioning than anyone else,” Tom answered.

“But,” Eric started to argue again when they were interrupted by a loud siren. Mike ran to the door and peered out before slamming it shut again. It was oddly silent outside except for the klaxon. Eric wondered what had happened to all the people who’d been out there when they came through. As much as they had freaked him out earlier, he certainly wouldn’t wish them any ill.

“No time!” Mike moved a cabinet, revealing a small door that he shoved Eric through. “Go to the end of the tunnel, then follow the path until it bends to the right. There will be a hole in the street with a cover over it. Climb out, put the cover back, and then wait. Someone, hopefully Jared, will be along as soon as we can manage.”

“What about you? Will you be all right?” Eric asked worriedly.

“We’ll be fine. Don’t worry about us. Just go.” Tom insisted, pressing a water canteen into his hands as Mike returned his clothing to the disheveled state it was in when Eric first entered the room.

“Wait for us there,” called Mike, as Eric entered the dark passageway. Eric called back his assent as he hurried away, running as much to avoid seeing the couple’s sexual activity as to escape the Guardians who were following. Behind him, one of his new friends closed the door, plunging him into darkness.

Alone again, Eric reached for the wall, holding onto it as the light was extinguished. Grimly, he made his way down the narrow passageway, terrified of what he was doing and even more afraid of what would happen to him if he didn’t. The description Tom had given of re-education had evoked a strange feeling in the pit of Eric’s stomach. He had felt the probes and needles being inserted into his own body, imagined writhing in agony as they bit into his skin and wondered why he was feeling it.

He never knew just how long he spent in that dark passageway. He ran until he had a stitch in his side, his breath wheezing as he waited, his back against the wall of what felt like roughly hewn rock, to recover enough to run some more. His hearing was dampened down by the sound of his own whistling breath as he ran, and he whimpered as images whirled through his head - Tom and Mike engaged in that proscribed act chief among them. If it had been he who had been discovered like that he could only imagine the pain that would be visited on him in order to shrive him and return his feet to the Path. The things he’d experienced, the Abominations he’d seen - touched even. He was damned, an Abomination himself now, and he didn’t know what to do with that information. He wondered if the Light would ever favor him again.

Something at the back of his mind itched, telling him that there was something important he’d forgotten. He stumbled along, still in the dark, wondering if he would ever reach the end of this ordeal.

When he finally did reach the ladder that Mike had mentioned, he found it by running into it and almost braining himself. The pain was a brilliant flare behind his eyes, and he fell backwards, sitting down very suddenly on his behind on the damp, slimy ground. He could feel a trickle of blood wind its way down from his scalp to join that which was already crusted on his cheek and chin following his self-inflicted, makeshift surgery.

He sat there on the ground for what felt like forever, waiting for his head to clear. When he finally pulled himself up to his feet he was light headed, dizzy, and as he fumbled to find the ladder again he thought that he might vomit.

Laying hold of the rusty metal at last, he began to climb, painstakingly testing each rung, feeling the rust abrade his fingers as he went. It seemed like forever before he finally touched the roof and attempted to raise the cover that Mike had mentioned. He felt it budge, but the one arm he dared to take from the rusty ladder was just not strong enough to leverage it open, and he had to climb up a little further to try and move it with his back and shoulders. That was somewhat more successful, and he slowly managed to dislodge the heavy steel and allow a little light into what was rapidly beginning to feel like a prison.

When hands suddenly gripped the cover and rolled it away from the exit to the tunnel with a loud grating sound, Eric jumped and almost fell from his perch on the ladder.

  
  


“Come on up.” The voice fell on his ears like welcome warmth, and he looked up to see the hand that was being extended to him, long fingered, huge and callused. “I thought you’d never get here.”

“Jared,” he breathed.

“In the flesh,” Jared flashed a dimpled smile as he helped Eric out of the hole and replaced the cover, pausing to scuff dust and rubble over it until it looked as if it had never been disturbed. “Come on. We have to find somewhere to wait for the others to get here.” He began to lead Eric through the ruined outskirts of Old Dallas as he was speaking. “Chad messaged me a few minutes ago to say that he was bringing Tom and Mike to rendezvous with us.”

They ran for what seemed like forever. Eric’s head was throbbing, and he felt as if his legs would give out from beneath him by the time Jared gave a little grunt of satisfaction and turned a corner towards a row of buildings that were, for the most part, falling down. There was the burned out shell of a store on the extreme end of the strip, its faded sign dangling from the clapboard by a single nail. The paint on the sign was blistered and peeling, but it still proclaimed that the shop had once been a pharmacy.

“This is it,” muttered Jared, grabbing hold of Eric’s wrist and towing him through the blackened doorway. Eric caught a skittering movement out of the corner of his eye, and shuddered. He uttered a slight sound of protest, but Jared turned to smile at him reassuringly. “Trust me.”

Jared towed him through the chaotic debris that littered the floor of the store and beyond to where another door was almost concealed behind a beam that had fallen from the ceiling. Despite the blackened and rusty appearance, the door appeared to be sound, and in fact proved to be made from metal. Drawing a slender tool from his pocket, Jared pointed it at the door and pressed a button on it which sent a narrow beam of light into what seemed to be a lens set in the fabric of the door itself.

The door swung open silently, and once again Jared reached for Eric, tugging him through into the darkness that lay behind it. He heard the door closing softly behind him - the whisper of air carrying with it the scents of machine oil and dust.

“Where are we?” His voice sounded dead in the enclosed space, and he frowned, not expecting that.

“Hold on.” Jared moved away from him, and a second later a light came on, a sudden burst of brilliance that made Eric blink. “This is just the place where we wait for Mike and Tommy. It’s safe. Metal stops the spy-rays if there’s a drone out looking for you by heat signature, and when Mike and Tom get here they’ll come through the hatch in the floor over there.”

‘Over there’ proved to be a patch of floor that had been left uncarpeted. As Eric looked around he could see that there was furniture in the small room - a couch and table, and a small sink unit, beside which stood a refrigerator.

“Why don’t you go and sit down?” Jared pressed Eric forward towards the couch, and he sank down on it without protest, watching as his companion headed to the sink and fumbled in the cabinet beneath it for paper towels. Wetting them from the sink, he made his way back to Eric and began to clean his face with them, dabbing carefully at the dried on blood with his tongue firmly clamped between his teeth as if he was concentrating hard. “The water is fine for washing with,” he said as he worked. “As long as you don’t ingest any of it. If you need something to drink, there’s some clean water in the fridge.” He paused for a moment, patted Eric’s cheek and grinned. “Or would you rather have a beer?”

“A beer? I don’t know...” Eric tentatively returned Jared’s smile, but there were questions in his eyes. “Would I like beer? A drink of some kind would go down very well, but so would some explanation. Who the hell are you? Why are they chasing me? What is this place and what are we going to do? We surely can’t be intending to stay here forever.”

“Whoa, whoa, one thing at a time, please.” Jared chuckled as he reached into the fridge and pulled out a pair of plaspods labeled with the familiar angel wings logo that indicated the brew was Manna, the drink that was exclusively available to the Guardians. Frowning, Eric took the plaspod from him and popped it open, inhaling the heady scent and frowning.

“Who are you really?” he asked Jared, eyes wide as he watched to see if the other man would laugh at him and tell him that he was guilty of blasphemy. “You know that this is forbidden to me?”

“Not anymore.” Jared opened his own pod and took a healthy slug. “You’re one of us now, and you can have whatever you want, be whoever you want. You don’t have to worry about cleansing, or re-education or...” Jared paused, took hold of Eric’s hand and turned it so that the pink triangle was exposed on his wrist. “Or orientation,” he finished up, tracing around the tattoo with one long, brown finger.

Jensen watched the finger’s progress with a frown. “You know what it is, don’t you?” he asked. “So tell me. I saw that Tom had the same mark as I do.”

“You’ll know when the time comes,” murmured Jared, squeezing Eric’s hand before laying it back down in his lap. “If I were to tell you now, you would find it very hard to believe me, and right now it’s important for you to trust me.”

Eric was about to protest, but his words were interrupted by a commotion as the hatchway in the corner was thrown open and first Tom and then Mike stepped through, followed by a creature - an Abomination - that Eric tried his hardest not to shy away from. It clambered out of the darkness beneath the hatch, and called out a greeting to Jared. “Hey, Jay! Long time no see. How the hell are you?”

Mike, who had noticed Eric’s attempt to shrink back into the couch cushions, stepped forward. “Eric, I want to introduce you to my friends, Chris and Steve.”

The abomination turned to face Eric, a smile on both his faces. “Hey, Eric,” said the blond head, nodding towards him as he spoke. “Pleased to meet you,” smirked the brunet, obviously relishing the effect his appearance was having.

Eric swallowed. “Uh... glad to meet you, too,” he whispered, wide eyed.

“They’re a little disconcerting when you meet them for the first time,” said Tom, winking at the duo. “But you really should hear them sing. They’re awesome.”

Jared and Mike had sealed up the hatchway again and now Jared was pulling open the protective steel door to their hideout as he pulled out his PAD and put in a call.

“Chad, where are you?” He paused, listening. “We’re at the pharmacy, and we’re ready to go.” He nodded and then put his assistant away. “He’ll be here in a few minutes. He said he hasn’t been followed, so we can head out to Balance HQ. Apparently Richard is there right now, and he’ll be able to answer any questions for Eric here.”

As he was finishing speaking, they all heard the growl of an engine, and moments later they heard Chad calling, “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” in a sing-song voice.

Rolling his eyes, Jared beckoned the odd collection of people to follow him, and led the way out onto the potholed street.

Chad was waiting for them, and his small vehicle was of a design the like of which Eric had never seen before. Sleek and streamlined, it had caterpillar tracks around the wheels, and looked to be able to cross even the roughest landscape.

“I see you brought the ATV,” said Chris, nodding his approval.

“We’ll need it if we’re gonna get all the way to Tulsa. The road disintegrates just before the 44, and we’re gonna have to bypass the remains of the air base just outside of Oklahoma City, because most of it’s still hot.” Steve smirked as they clambered into the ATV. “Trust me, you don’t wanna get into that kind of radiation if you value your skin.”

“Got that right,” agreed Tom, hopping in behind Chris and Steve and beckoning Mike to take the seat next to him. Jared took the front seat next to Chad and gestured for Eric to take the one behind him.

“C’mon. What are you waiting for?” Chad was fidgeting, impatient as he waited for Eric to climb aboard. “It’s gonna be Prayer for the Right Hand Path pretty soon, and then the curfew will mean we can’t get out of here.”

Making up his mind, Eric swallowed his fears and climbed in to sit beside Chris and Steve, who both turned to smile at him reassuringly. “You’ll get used to us, dude,” said Chris, patting his shoulder. “Don’t worry.”

It had been a long day. Eric had long since given up worrying. His head was throbbing, and he was exhausted. He merely nodded, and as Chad threw the vehicle into gear and took off, he closed his eyes and slept the sleep of the completely exhausted.

  
  


_The Path towards the Light is strewn with temptations. Do not stray and you will find your reward in the Light._

Uneasy dreams plagued him. Monsters lurked in the shadows just beyond his vision, and he could hear Danneel calling him, telling him to come out and be re-educated so that they could be happy again. In his dream, in the distance, he could see the familiar man again - the one with the dark hair and moss colored eyes. He could see the man calling to him; impotently he watched the agitated jerk of his head as he shouted, but he couldn’t hear what was being said, no matter how hard he strained.

He awoke with a jolt to Jared’s hand on his shoulder, shaking him awake. “Eric? You okay?”

He swallowed carefully in an attempt to re-orient himself to his surroundings and found Chris and Steve eyeing him from the seat next to him, while Jared was leaning over the seat in front, looking concerned.

“I... yeah. Was just having a weird dream is all,” said Eric. He felt groggy and disoriented, and rubbed at his face in an attempt to become fully awake.

Jared passed him a pod of water and clapped him on the shoulder prior to turning back to the road. Gratefully, Eric sipped from the pod he’d been offered and turned to smile ruefully at Chris and Steve, who were still watching him narrowly.

“It’s okay, guys,” he said, clearing his throat. “It’s a dream I’ve been having a lot lately. I don’t know what it means, but it’s kind of disorienting.”

Steve nodded wisely. “That sometimes happens when re-education starts to fail,” he said to Chris, and Chris gave him a nod in agreement, then turned to Eric.

“You’ve got all the symptoms. That’s why you’re on the run, right?”

“I don’t...” Eric stopped suddenly. He had been about to say that he didn’t know, but all of a sudden he did know. A vision took him - that of white walls and machinery pressing him in, the feel of straps holding him still, metal around his head and arms as a needle slid into his vein, the sound of screaming that cut off abruptly. It all suddenly made sense. “Yeah,” he said. Whatever re-education entailed, he didn’t want it, and he would run with these Abominations to the ends of the known universe if it meant that he could avoid it.

  
  


  
  


_The Light is good. Learn to love it, and once you serve it, you will be transformed. You must aspire to become the Light and leave the self behind._

The journey continued, and it seemed that there was no pursuit. Jared had passed out more of the delicious food that Eric had experienced the first time they’d encountered each other, and Eric savored every bite, allowing the unaccustomed flavors to blossom on his tongue, knowing that although each bite was forbidden, he was never again going to need to confess it and be shriven. The wasteland seemed empty save for the tumbling weeds that blew hither and yon, and the glaring sky that dared him to taste each bite. He ate every scrap he’d been given and ignored the bright sun that he’d offered thanks to that very morning.

By the time they hit Oklahoma City, Eric was drowsing again, and came awake with a start when Chris and Steve shook him gently. “Hey, wake up, sleepy head. We get to step outside for a short while, so Chad can refuel and we can stretch our legs and take a leak.”

“Dunno about you, but I could go for a steak. We should go hit up Beaver’s.” Chris raised an eyebrow at Steve, and Eric watched in awe as they high-fived themselves. “You wanna come, junior?” asked Steve. “The steaks at Beaver’s are the best you’ll ever have.”

“What is a steak? Do you mean soysteak?” asked Eric, picturing a sharpened wooden pole or something of that nature. Jared, who had been stretching his long limbs, gave a laugh that made Eric jump.

“Dude, that settles it. We have to introduce you to real steak. You’ve never enjoyed a meal until you’ve had steak.” He flung an arm carelessly around Eric’s shoulders and beckoned to Mike and Tom who were just emerging from the back seat of the vehicle. “Come on. We’re heading to Beaver’s to introduce this poor, deprived soul to steak.” He turned to call out their destination to Chad, and got a thumbs up from him as they turned to head down into the city underground.

They walked through the city, but it was a city such as Eric had never seen. The part of Oklahoma City he had visited had been a quiet, colorless place on the outskirts, where uniformed Guardians checked messengers in as they arrived with their cargos and led them to their bare cells to sleep and commune with the Light before they returned to Dallas. This Oklahoma City, located deep below the ground, where the light from the sun would never reach, was gaudy and shabby. There were no cool corridors with white painted walls. There were no uniforms visible, but the place teemed with life. Women, apparently without modesty, milled about displaying enough skin that Eric didn’t know where to look. They all offered goods for sale, from strange looking fruit to shiny trinkets. Men clad in leather and feathers yelled at them as they passed, demanding that they stop to examine the contents of their stalls, and Jared, walking in front of the others, clasped several hands as he passed, calling out greetings to the stall-holders as he went.

Beaver’s was a brightly lit place with multitudes of tables. It was full of people, all chattering and eating, and there was a stage at one end of the room upon which a troupe of scantily clad women was doing some kind of posing routine. Eric shivered at the proudly displayed evidence of Abomination that at least one third of the stage’s occupants bore, but merely took his place at the table they had been led to and listened as Jared ordered them each a steak and fries, indicating Eric and telling them to give him a special one because it would be his first.

The steak, when it arrived, was a rich dark brown and gave off an aroma that was not only mouth-watering, but also vaguely familiar. It was accompanied by crisp, brown vegetables of some description, and a rich, flavorful red sauce that he watched the others dip their vegetables into.

The tastes exploded on his tongue, and he began to eat avidly, aware that he was rapidly becoming as much of a deviant in need of purging as the others who sat around the table. He ate, moaning at each delicious mouthful.

Jared, who was seated beside him, laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. “That’s better than those ration packs, isn’t it?” Nodding with his mouth full, Eric gestured at the vegetables and raised an eyebrow. “Oh, those? Those are fries. They’re made from potatoes sliced up. The steak is prime beef.”

“Beef?” Eric frowned. “What is that?”

“It’s meat from a cow.” Jared grinned and crammed his last mouthful in.

“You mean this is from an animal?” Eric dropped his fork and looked horrified.

“Of course it is. Nice, big, tender, juicy steak. It beats your tofu and sawdust.” Jared grinned around his mouthful.

Eric’s first reaction was shock. He looked down at his plate and studied the debris that was left on his plate. There didn’t seem to be any steak left at all. “I can’t believe that I ate from something unclean.” Jared looked up at him, attempting to gauge his mood, but then chuckled.

“Did you like it?” he asked.

“Oh, yeah.” Eric nodded. “Dude, I would’ve been in so much trouble from the Guardians. I’d probably never be able to eat again without having a panic attack.”

“You’re okay.” Jared took Eric’s hand and turned it so that the pink triangle was visible once more, tracing it with his finger as he had done before. “Are you still sure that you recall nothing of this?” he asked.

Nodding, Eric shrugged, and Jared released his hand, turning back towards the stage, where Chris and Steve, guitar in their hands, were preparing to play.

  
  


_The Unacceptable are so because they have shunned the Light. If they do not repent, they become Abomination, and it is not a crime to put Abomination to death._

They set off for Tulsa early the following morning, having spent the night in one of Beaver’s rooms, all six of them sleeping the sleep of the exhausted. Eric had dreamed again in the night, hazy, half formed dreams where a shadowy figure had held him close and whispered words to him that he strained in vain to hear, but mercifully there was nothing in his dream that woke him screaming, and he felt refreshed when he woke up.

The southeast side of Oklahoma City was forbidden to anyone who wanted to retain their health, and was only populated by Abominations. The air base there had been hit hard in the End Times by dirty bombs that had left it radioactive. Skirting around the west and north edges of the ruined city took a while, and although Eric had traveled around it in the past, he was always uneasy, afraid that something from the Desolation there would infect him, and he too would become an Abomination. As far as he was concerned, Chad took them way too close to the core of it. Once around it, the road was rougher on the Tulsa side of Oklahoma City, and Chad kept up a litany of complaint and profanity regarding the state of it as they bounced and crept along. The sky was a weird, brassy color that Eric had never seen before, and Tom announced that it looked as if there was weather coming in.

  
  


They were within sight of Tulsa when they saw the threatened weather. There had been a twister on the horizon, pacing them for the last 20 minutes or so, and Steve had happily been composing a song about it, which meant that when its much bigger brother or sister was suddenly bearing down on them from the opposite side, it took them all by surprise.

Jared, who had spotted it first, let out a squawk. Chad, looking around hastily, let out a stream of bad language that put his more recent diatribes to shame at the same time as he stomped on the accelerator, making the car surge forward. They bounced along at double their previous speed, each man wondering if they would make it to shelter or if they were going to die.

In the end, the vortex shot by them only a handful of yards away, and Steve muttered, “Dude, I don’t know which one of us let go the bladder, but you and I need a change of underwear.”

A couple of minutes later they were at the gates of the dome that sheltered Tulsa, and Chad was presenting their credentials to the fatigue clad merc who passed them in without even checking them.

“Where are the Guardians?” Eric peered around, trying to identify members of the Fellowship. There were none in sight, and somehow that disturbed him.

“There are only a couple of them,” announced Mike, who was cuddling up to his partner in the rear of the vehicle. “And they won’t come out of their burrow in case they get infected by one of us deviants. That’s good, right?”

Eric nodded, keeping to himself the thought that the Guardians would be far more likely to categorize Tom and Mike as Abominations rather than merely deviant. “That’s definitely good.”

Tulsa was, for the most part, almost as dilapidated as Old Dallas had been. The dome protected the residents from most of the effects of weather. There did not seem to be the same concrete maze that Dallas sported, and the buildings around them had been patched with the oddest assortment of wood and metal. Those that lived there ignored the small party as they parked Chad’s vehicle and climbed out to walk the last half a mile or so. Chad had explained that vehicles had been banned within Tulsa Dome, since someone had gotten high on zendust and driven a tractor-trailer right through the barrier and into the river, meaning that the entire dome had needed to be reconstructed.

Jared seemed to know where they were going, and the rest of them followed on wordlessly as he led them through the old streets and under the crumbling expressway to a building that seemed to be in comparatively good repair. The sign on the wall read, “Equality Center,’ and beneath it was a logo that had been cast in bronze, which showed the familiar circle that had been divided into two halves by a curving line, each of the halves displaying finer lines, one side depicting a mountain, while the other showed an ocean with leaping dolphins. Eric caught his breath. He’d seen that logo before, even before he’d noticed it on Jared’s logbook and traced it into his own journal once he’d got home. In a way, he knew that his action was the reason he was here right now.

He cast a swift look at Jared, only to find Jared doing the same to him, and, as their eyes met, a tingling warmth shook him, and he caught his breath. He was beginning to realize that his reaction to Jared was in some way sexual, and it puzzled him. Jared gave Eric his dimpled smile and reached to put his hand on the small of Eric’s back. “Come on in and meet Richard. He’s gonna help make things clearer for you.”

Eric wasn’t sure what to expect when he followed the others into the Equality Center, but it was a pleasant surprise to find a lounge and the aroma of something delicious cooking as they entered the building. There were a few people sitting around with their steaming drinks and pastries, and in the corner a pair of men was frowning over a chessboard. It all seemed very anticlimactic to Eric, who had been expecting something that resembled the chaos of the club where he’d met Mike and Tom.

He was about to ask Jared what they were supposed to do, and if they had to register somewhere, when there was a loud whoop and a small man appeared from a doorway beside the counter and cannoned across the room to fling both arms and legs around Jared before applying noogies to the top of his head. “Jay! You’re here at last!” said the newcomer, grinning wildly and stepping back to grin at the company.

“Oh, God! Am I?” Jared was laughing, dimples flashing. “I suppose I must be, since you’re messing up my hair again.” He turned to Eric. “Meet Richard, also known as Tricky Dicky to his friends. He’s the scourge of the Lone Star Colony, and coincidentally the leader on Earth of the Balanced Earth Society, commonly known as the Balance, which is the name of the resistance to those jerks over at Lone Star who want to control humanity.”

Eric gave Richard a tentative smile, and was surprised when the man pulled him into a hug. “It’s great to meet you at last; Matt told me so much about you.”

Frowning, Eric allowed the hug and then shook the offered hand. He wondered who Matt was, and thought that perhaps it was another name for Jared. Richard was obviously known to the others, and once greetings had been made, he led them through the lounge and along a corridor to an office. There was a perky blonde behind a computer, and Eric’s eyes grew round, because she was the smallest person he had ever seen. There was a call from across the room, and a fierce looking man bounded over. He had wild hair and the largest sword Eric had ever seen suspended from a leather belt slung low on his hips. His clothing was of a coarsely woven cloth made from strands of different colored wool.

“Allow me to introduce my computer guru, Misha,” said Richard, ducking the swipe at the back of his head that Misha had aimed at him.

“I can introduce myself just fine, thank you,” announced the newcomer. “So is this the one you were waiting for?” He studied Eric with a blank, blue eyed stare for so long that he began to wonder just what was wrong with his face. Finally, Misha nodded. “Yes, indeed. He is the one Matt told us of.”

“Now wait just a minute.” Eric turned to Jared. “What are they talking about? Are you Matt? Why do they think someone told them about me?”

“It’s okay.” Jared put an arm around Eric’s shoulders and pulled him in close. “They’ll give you all the answers to your questions. Don’t worry.”

“Do you feel somehow as if your life is not real?” Misha moved pieces of machinery, set up a holotube and beckoned Eric towards him as he spoke. “You know somewhere in your mind that it’s true. You are not the one you believed yourself to be. I did a little hacking and discovered your file from The Fellowship. Come. Sit. I will show you.”

Eric surveyed the metal helmet that Misha was holding, and felt a stab of cold fear pierce him. There was something telling him to run, to hide. He began to sweat, felt giddy, his breath hitching as dizziness overwhelmed him. Faintly, he heard Jared behind him call out a warning, and then his world faded away.

When he awoke, it was to Jared’s soft voice telling him to relax, and he would be able to see. “See what?” he croaked, becoming increasingly aware of the fact that he was reclining in the seat that Misha had indicated, and of the helmet that now circled his head. “I don’t...”

He felt the holotube click home, and all of a sudden he was no longer in the room, listening to Jared and Misha. He was standing on a marble floor in a glass and plasteel room with a vaulted ceiling, and there was a man facing him, tall, dark haired, green eyed and beautiful. Eric’s eyes widened as he recognized the man who had been moving so silently through his dreams, and he attempted to take a step forward, touch the newcomer, but found himself unable to move. He was about to yell for help, when the man spoke.

“Hello, love,” the man said. “I guess I got caught, and now I’m dead, which means that you most likely were caught too. I made this video for you especially for if they caught us. I knew they’d mindwipe you, so I made some contingency plans, because you’re needed, now more than ever. If you’re seeing me on this holotube message it means that Plan B is in effect, and we’re all depending on you. I’ve given copies of this holovid to Richard, Julian and Traci, and I’m just hoping that one of them finds you.

“You’ve probably started to realize that you aren’t who you think you are, so let me remind you of the things they’ve taken away. Your name is Jensen, Jensen Ackles. I’m Matt, and we were together. I’m hoping that you’ll start to remember that we were going to come back to the mother planet and save it.”

There was a hollow sounding, gong-like boom, and Eric - or Jensen as it seemed he really was - began to remember. Images flicked past his eyes. Matt smiling at him, holding his hand surreptitiously as they walked through the concourse beneath the twin moons of Phobos and Deimos. Matt in his ceremonial robe as he was on his way to be inducted as a neophyte at the temple, eyes wide with fear as his father led him into the sanctum sanctorum. Suddenly those images faded, and he was back in the white room of his nightmares, strapped down as he listened to the screams and shrieks, and finally silence save for the sound of the buzzing laser as he lost consciousness once more.

  
  


_Abomination is unclean. Do not suffer it to live, for it will infect and destroy the Light in all that it touches._

He awoke with a pounding headache. He was lying on a bed that was much softer and more comfortable than the one at his condo, and as he moaned and began to push himself up, he heard Jared’s voice.

“Take it easy, Jensen. Here. Drink this.” He opened his eyes to see Jared hovering over him, holding out a small glass of purple liquid. Shrugging his shoulders, he took the glass and sipped, then gasped at the flavor of the drink. It burned a little as he swallowed it, but it tasted heavenly, sweet, and sharp and fruity in a way he’d never experienced before.

“What is it?” he asked as he took another sip.

“Plum liqueur,” said Jared, holding up a similar glass of his own. “Richard distills it, and he said we were celebrating your arrival. It seems that he’s been trying to find you for some time now. He said that he wasn’t sure where they’d hidden you.” He sipped his own drink and closed his eyes as he appreciated it. “Man, that’s good stuff.”

“So my name isn’t Eric?” Jensen frowned, a little confused.

“Don’t you remember now?” Jared studied Jensen’s face intently. “Being on Mars, and Matt, and the resistance?”

“Matt...”Jensen frowned. “I remember his face. He’s been in my dreams. He held my hand, and I don’t know why.” Jensen shivered. “I think I remember him dying.”

“Oh, no. I’m so sorry.” Jared reached for him, enveloped him in a hug that took his breath away and sent tingles through his body. “Of all the things to have to remember, that’s got to be the worst ever.”

It was warm in Jared’s arms. Jensen didn’t want to pull away, but there was a knock on the door, and as Jared released him, Richard poked his head around the door. “How are you two doing? Dinner’s ready, if you’re hungry.”

  
  


_Abominations may not be visible at first sight. Observe your neighbor carefully and turn away from him if he strays._

The food looked amazing, but Eric - or rather, Jensen, as his name apparently really was - didn’t think that he would be able to eat anything. He felt sick, the visions in his head clashing with his memories of Lone Star and utterly confusing him. As he took his seat between Richard and Jared, he wondered which of those conflicting lives had actually, really been his.

It wasn’t long before Richard noticed how pale he was looking and beckoned over a sweet faced blonde girl, dispatching her to fetch something that Jensen was unfamiliar with. When she returned with a small, silvery metal circlet, Richard took it from her with a word of thanks. He was taken aback when Richard turned to him and reached up to put it on his head.

“Don’t worry; you won’t feel a thing.” Richard’s lip curled in a smirk as Jensen attempted to avoid the unfamiliar object. He felt a chill sweep over him as Richard insisted on pressing the object towards his head, and a wave of panic shook him when he felt strong hands clamp down on his shoulders. Moments later, he heard Jared’s soft voice murmuring gentle words, telling him that it would help, saying things he didn’t quite understand, but which somehow made him feel good anyway.

He relaxed a little, and Richard placed the metal band around his head. It vibrated slightly once it was in place, and then seemed to settle, suffusing him with a warmth and contentment that had definitely been lacking earlier. “What is it?” he asked, finally.

“It’s an integrator.” Misha was the one who answered him. “It’ll help with the confusion - get your memories in order, or at least the ones that weren’t wiped by the re-educators.” He smirked. “I know it’ll help. I designed it myself.”

“Misha’s always so modest,” said Richard, passing Jensen a dish full of savory stew. “Here, have something to eat. You need to get some meat on your bones.”

Jensen eyed Jared’s plate and saw that he had already helped himself to a couple of scoops, and was now reaching for another dish that contained something creamy white and fluffy. He followed suit, taking a small amount of each and watching Jared closely to see what the approved table manners might be.

Jared didn’t wait; he merely picked up his spoon and fork and began to eat, uttering little moans of pleasure as he did. Jensen watched him, eyes wide for a moment, and then bent to taste his own food. The flavor exploded into his mouth, savory and spicy. He made his own sound of approval, and Richard clapped him on the shoulder.

“Alona’s a great cook,” he murmured. “You should tell her you approve.”

“It’s amazing. I never tasted anything like it before. What is it?” Jensen spoke around another mouthful and reached for the bowl containing the stew to take some more.

“I think it’s bunny,” Richard looked over to where Alona was sitting, and she gave him a nod. “We were out hunting the other day and brought a couple of them back. They’re great when you spice ‘em up right.”

For a moment, Jensen frowned, remembering the huge, fanged, red-eyed creatures he’d seen out in the Desolation. They had terrified him then. Now he merely shrugged his shoulders and took another delicious bite. “Well, I’d rather eat him than have him eat me,” he mumbled.

“That’s the spirit.” Misha had finished his meal and was carelessly honing the scimitar he had been toting around with him. Jensen eyed him nervously. He didn’t really like to ask, but it was apparently evident to anyone that saw him that he was really confused about the whole thing. Misha laughed. “I see you are curious about my little leveler here. I like to keep it sharp in memory of my Tartar ancestors.”

“Ancestors?” snorted Jared. “Yeah, right.”

“But what is it for?” Jensen frowned. “Seems pretty archaic to me. Surely more modern weapons are more effective.”

“You will see when the revolution comes,” muttered Misha, darkly. “A paralyzer ray is all very well, but I like to see the blood spurt.”

“I guess we all have to have a hobby.” Jared was grinning, dimples popping. When Jensen cast a sidelong glance at him he felt that telltale swooping, fluttering sensation in his belly once again. It intensified when Jared met his eyes and winked. Unnerved, he looked down at his now empty plate and frowned as he felt a most unseemly swelling at his groin. He was going to say something about it, but at that moment Misha put his sword away and rose to his feet.

“Jensen, you must come with me now. There is more to explore for you. I have messages that you must hear now that you’ve integrated your memories into your conditioning.”

“I have?” Jensen didn’t sound convinced.

“You will see, once we remove the integration circuit from your head.” Misha didn’t wait for a response, merely turning and heading off to his lair. Sighing, Jensen murmured an apology to the rest of them and turned to follow him.

“Want me to come with?” Jared got up as well. “Just for moral support?”

That inexplicable warmth suffused Jensen again, and he nodded with a shy smile. “Please.”

Back in Misha’s office, Jensen was encouraged to take a seat so that Misha could disengage the device he was wearing. He was a little apprehensive, but the device had done its work, and he was feeling far less frightened and unnerved by the things he’d heard and seen over the past 24 hours or so. Jared took a seat beside him, and as the circlet was lifted from his head, Jared rubbed his shoulder reassuringly.

“You passed out before you got to see the rest of the holovid. And you really do need to see the rest of it. It’s important for the future of all of us who want to reclaim the Earth.” Misha was setting the holotube up for him again as he spoke, and Jared squeezed his shoulder, then patted it and let his hand drop. “You’ll be okay. We’ll take care of you,” he said.

“Not until someone explains what’s going on,” Jensen insisted, feeling as though he’d been swept along by a tumult of events that he had no control over. “What’s re-education and why am I so afraid of it? And who are you guys? The resistance? Resistance to what?”

“You don’t know?” Misha responded incredulously. “I thought your conditioning had failed? When’s the last time you had a treatment?”

“Conditioning? Treatment?” Jensen asked, annoyed at the way everyone kept talking around him, as if he weren’t there or were too simple to understand.

Jared answered at the same time that Jensen did, “He’s been away from them since yesterday morning. Is that enough time for the conditioning to have failed completely?”

Jensen was really getting tired of people not answering his questions. Especially when the avoidance was only more questions he didn’t understand, but he couldn’t find it in himself to be annoyed with Jared. He rounded on Misha again, “I was promised answers once I got here, and I’m not allowing you to do one more thing to me until I get them.”

  
  


“Your re-education should’ve failed by now, surely. I don’t understand; It’s never happened like this before,” Misha muttered, completely ignoring his questions yet again.

Jensen inhaled sharply, ready to lash out at Misha again, when Jared placed a comforting hand on his arm. “Don’t mind Misha. He’s an … acquired taste. He’s a genius, but he doesn’t think like the rest of us do. And he certainly lacks interpersonal relation skills.”

“His re-education likely went deeper than any others we’ve seen. Matt said it would be so, but I’d forgotten,” Richard’s voice came from the doorway, and all three of them whirled to face him. He made his way the rest of the way into the room and shut the door, then turned to face Jensen fully. “I’m sorry, Jensen. Let’s get those questions answered.”

“But how? Why would they need to …” Misha’s voice trailed off as he apparently finally realized they were all glaring at him. He turned to the monitors arrayed around him, muttering an apology.

Richard continued, ignoring Misha. “Conditioning is done to all citizens of the Fellowship of Divine Light, both directly and indirectly. Indirectly, starting from childhood, the appropriate behaviors are rewarded, while inappropriate ones are punished.” Richard’s disdain for the practice was clear in the inflections in his voice at the word “appropriate”.

“Well, sure,” Jensen responded. “That’s how it works. Parents model appropriate behavior, and reward and punish their children as needed. Once they are grown, if they can’t control their own behavior, the state has to intervene. That’s how a society works; without it, there is anarchy, or a police state.”

“Maybe,” Richard allowed. “I guess it depends on how far it goes, whether any original thought or questioning of the government or religion, which are the same in this case, is allowed. We can debate that another time. That’s not usually what we’re talking about when we say conditioning, anyway. We’re referring more to the direct kind.”

“Stop arguing ethics and get to the point already,” groused Misha, still, to all outward appearances, engrossed in whatever was on his monitors, periodically pecking at one of the many keyboards spread across his workspace. “We don’t have all day.”

“I was getting there,” Richard said to Misha. “The Fellowship directly conditions its citizens by conditioning treatments when they pray in the pods or capsules or whatever you call them in the temples or in the little shrines you have in your homes … “

“The sanctoriums,” Jensen supplied the word softly.

“Yes, those, thank you.” Richard continued, “They generate a neural field that subtly reinforces both the indirect conditioning and any re-education that has been done. And you guys pray something like five or six times per day, right?”

“Yeah, there are six formal daily prayers,” Jensen answered automatically. “But it’s common to skip the Prayer of Gratitude for Illuminating the Fellowship and the Plea for Acceptability Beneath the Light during the workweek. It can break up the day too much.”

The others stared at him disbelievingly. Finally Jared broke the silence, “Dude, you get on your knees and pray to those bastards six times a day?”

“Well, not anymore, obviously,” Jensen returned.

“Well, those prayers kept your re-education intact for quite a while,” Richard went on. “But, I suspect it was starting to fragment even before you met Jared. How long had you been dreaming about Matt?”

“For a while … weeks? Months, maybe?” Jensen answered slowly, shuddering. “I heard his scream long before I saw his face.”

“Well, anyway, that was a big sign that your conditioning was breaking down. And then meeting Jared and learning that there was life outside your little commune accelerated the process.”

“So then, re-education is this mindwipe Matt talked about on the holovid? The thing I remember with the chair and the straps and the huge fucking needles going into my head?” Jensen shivered as he heard himself say one of the words prohibited by the Guardians and then realized that it no longer mattered. He was free.

“That’s about the size of it,” Richard replied. “Any more questions?”

“I don’t know,” answered Jensen. “I guess that would make you guys the resistance to the Fellowship, and the Guardians would be the ones who did this to me.”

“Fantastic,” Misha inserted brightly. “Are you ready for the rest of this holovid then?”

“Okay, I guess.” Jensen nodded his assent, unsure why it was so important to everyone that he be shown this message. Settling back in his seat, he smiled nervously and waited to find out.

Matt’s announcement about his actual identity played once again, and this time his voice continued on to tell him that he, Jensen, was the son of one of the priests in the Martian Acropolis, serving with The Divine Guide Towards the Light, who was Matt’s uncle. Jensen frowned. Mars was not something he’d even imagined as accessible. He knew, of course, that the Right Hand of the Divine that led the Lone Star Colony believed that he was from Mars and reported back to the priesthood there in his prayers, but he’d always thought of Mars as being synonymous with Heaven rather than an actual place where real people lived. He’d heard the legend of the few that were supposed to have escaped to Mars, and seen the gouge across the face of the moon, but he’d always thought the Divine himself was some sort of God figure, not a real, actual person. But, Matt was still speaking, and he sat forward to listen as the handsome image said, “You need to come to Mars and find Traci. She’s the only one who can help you find the data you’ll need to rescue the Earth.”

As Jensen frowned, taking the information in, Matt concluded his message. “I’ve left clues that only you will be able to interpret. We’re all depending on you. I know you can do it; I know you can free the Earth and end the tyranny that’s preventing our return to the world where we should be. Don’t let my uncle win, please. I love you, Jen. I’ll always love you. Goodbye for now. We’ll meet again someday; I know it.”

As the holovid came to an end, Misha extracted it from the player and tucked it back into its case, leaving Jensen frowning.

“That’s stupid. This is a myth. Nobody can get to Mars.” He sounded as though his intelligence had been insulted by the very idea of traveling to Mars. “Isn’t Mars just a legend? How can anyone get to Mars these days, let alone me? I’m just a truck driver.” He paused and then raised his eyes to meet Jared’s. “How the hell am I going to get to Mars?” he finally asked.

“That’s easy.” Jared beamed, dimples flickering as he turned to Jensen. “Come with me. I go on a run every six weeks. It’s my job.”

“I... thought you were a scavenger.” Jensen blinked, not quite sure if he was dreaming or not.

“Yeah. That’s what I do. I collect and recycle discarded materials that are dumped out in the wasteland, dismantle them, sort them and then stockpile them ready for shipment to Mars, where all the manufacturing takes place. The Fellowship on Earth doesn’t really have the know-how to build the engines and equipment they need, and a lot of it - like your truck - is abandoned for want of anyone to repair it. I take it back to Mars so it can be recycled and put back into use. Then I bring down things that have been ordered by the Guardians. They pay me in water credits and that’s how we continue to live out here in the badlands.”

“You have a spaceship?” Jensen shook his head in disbelief, still unable to get his head around this expanded idea of Jared’s importance. He’d read about spaceships and even seen sensos that had them, usually with green, tentacled alien abominations, but he’d always thought that they were something from Before. He’d had no idea that there were actual spaceships now. “Where is it? Can I see it?”

“Sure.” Jared grinned, dimples popping. “I need to make one more run out into the wastelands to pick up a stash I couldn’t haul back last time, because I was busy making sure your truck was stored safely. That was a windfall for me, I can tell you. If you come with me and give me a hand hauling the last stash in, we can be on our way to Mars in the next week or so with a full cargo.”

All of this new information was giving Jensen a headache. He wasn’t the man he’d believed he was. Mars was real. There were ships that traveled there, and he had been there, lived there, even though he had no memory of it. “Oh, Light,” he whispered as everything he’d learned over the last 48 hours came flooding through him. “I think I need to...” The next moment, he was reeling forward to kneel over the trashcan and empty his stomach while Jared dropped beside him to hold him steady.

He threw up everything in his system, and it was only when he was so empty that it hurt him to move was he able to stop and sit back, mumbling apologies as Jared handed him a glass of water.

Misha reached for the trashcan and went to do something with it, while Jared crouched beside him, anxiously watching him for any signs of a relapse. Richard appeared, bearing a bottle of something that smelled alcoholic and poured out a small glassful, bidding Jensen to drink it and then on second thoughts pouring another for Jared and then tipping the bottle up to his own lips and drinking noisily.

“That ought to help. I should’ve thought about the shock you must have been suffering from,” he said to Jensen, who still looked pale but much more collected than he had been. “You should sleep it off, and we’ll start again tomorrow, okay?”

Jensen nodded and allowed Richard to help Jared pull him to his feet, leading the way back down the corridor to a room which Richard announced would be his whenever he stayed at the center. The alcohol had begun to kick in, and Jensen was feeling a little woozy, so he allowed his two companions to divest him of his top clothes and help him into the bed. A moment or so later he was asleep.

  
  


_Confess all your sins to the Light and be shriven. Sinners are Unacceptable, and to be Unacceptable is to lose the Pathway to Righteousness._

Waking up the next morning was a gradual process. He was warm, cocooned in the softest bed he’d ever known. It was a far cry from the utilitarian bunks offered to him on his excursions to make deliveries out in the Desolation. As consciousness began to return to him, he felt disoriented for a moment. He’d slept heavily, and yet no bad dreams had invaded his peace. Now, as he began to awaken, the events of the past day or so all rushed in on him. His identity was something that had been fabricated and put into his head electronically, and he suddenly felt a rage so fierce that he shook with it.

The Guardians and the priests had violated him, and, if the holovid he’d seen was true, then they’d killed someone who had meant a lot to him. That was an outrage, and he would not stand for it. He was going to do what he could to redress the wrongs that they’d done, not only to him, but to who knew how many other hapless innocents?

Sitting up, he swung his feet over the edge of the bed and reached for his clothes. He needed to start his day. He was no longer meek Eric Brady, who put his trust in the Guardians and allowed them to lead him around like a dog on a leash. He was Jensen Ackles, and they would find out that that was a very different proposition. Everyone was waiting for him to lead them to change, and he was going to do so, or die trying.

His clothing had been refreshed, and there were fresh underclothes lying in a neat pile on the chair beside the bed, indicating that someone had been in to check on him while he’d been sleeping.

He dressed himself swiftly, wishing that he wasn’t still wearing the emblem of the Fellowship of the Divine Light on his uniform jacket. He studied it, wondering if he could rip it from his pocket, and then decided that he could probably have someone remove the pocket itself once he asked.

His stomach gave a very insistent growl, and without any further ado he made his way out of the room and back towards where Misha’s office was located. He was almost there when Richard popped out of the door and greeted him with a smile and a welcome.

“Good morning. The sensors told us you’d surfaced. I bet you’re hungry, am I right?”

Agreeing that he could indeed eat a little something, he allowed Richard to guide him through to the dining area, where he found Jared sitting drinking something that smelled incredible. As he looked up and saw Jensen, Jared smiled and reached for the pot that was on the table, pouring a cup of the fragrant beverage out and passing it over to Jensen as he sat down.

In a few minutes more he’d been supplied with a plate of food that made his stomach rumble even more, and as he began to eat he gave a happy sigh.

“You seem to be feeling a lot better this morning.” Richard had poured himself a drink of the liquid from the pot, which he’d discovered was called coffee. This was the beverage that his “caffeine allotment” was supposed to replace? That alone more than anything he’d seen yet served to convince Jensen that the resistance had the right of it. Any group that denied its citizens such a marvelous drink (not to mention the other foods he’d been enjoying) could only be out to control its populace, not look out for them. To Jensen, the smell and taste of the brown liquid was worth all the trauma he’d experienced over the past few days. His face was still sore from the chase through the darkness of the sewers, but he was feeling almost light headed with the knowledge that he had a mission to carry out.

He was eating some vegetable that he thought might be potato, although it was cooked in a way he’d never experienced, with little pieces of some spicy red vegetable chopped into it along with small pieces of a smoky meat that was utterly delicious. He reached for more coffee and smiled around a mouthful of food.

“Feeling so much better,” he said. “Thank you. If I was back in Lone Star and ate like this, I’d be chastised for loving the flesh too much. We’re not meant to enjoy food. That isn’t what it’s for, according to the Guardians. Enjoyment leads to overindulgence, which is Unacceptable.”

“Is that really what you believe?” Jared raised his eyebrows.

“Don’t think I believe anything anymore,” confessed Jensen. “Is it wrong to want to fight them? They’ve done so much to me; I want to hurt them for the things they’ve done.”

“I don’t think it’s wrong.” Richard clapped his shoulder. “You’ve been manipulated and hurt. Your life was taken from you in almost as thorough a way as Matt’s was taken from him. They’ve stolen your personality and made you into a drudge. That would make me angry - in fact it does make me angry on your behalf.”

“Angry,” Jensen nodded. “I didn’t know I could feel this furious.” He turned back to Jared. “When do we go get your stuff and take it to Mars? I wanna get moving.”

Jared chuckled. “Finish your breakfast first, man. We can head out as soon as you’re done.” He rose to his feet to take his empty dishes into the kitchen. As he went, Jensen saw the symbol on the back of his shirt, and it reminded him of the need to get rid of his Lone Star emblem. Indicating the offending logo, he asked Richard if he could remove it somehow, and Richard got up, saying that he’d be back in a moment or two.

He was just draining the last dregs of his third coffee when Richard returned bearing a navy blue shirt that bore the same design on it that Jared wore. “This is the emblem of the Balanced Earth Society,” explained Richard. “Right now we’re the resistance, but one day we’ll reclaim the world for humanity, and drive out the ones that are currently holding her hostage in order to keep control of the population.”

Jensen beamed as he took the offered garment and lost no time in discarding the jacket he was wearing so he could replace it with the new shirt. “Now I feel like I’m one of you,”

“That’s a relief,” smirked Richard. “I’d hate to have to kill you.”

“I’d hate to have to be killed, Richard,” Jensen replied. “Got to warn you, though, if you try. I bite!”

“Oh, go talk to Misha! That’s more his style...”

At that moment, Jared returned carrying a large cooler. “Okay,” he murmured. “I’ve got us lunch. You ready to head out?” Nodding, Jensen fell into step beside him, ready to start what he intended to be a battle to the death against the Guardians of the Divine Light and everything they had done to him.

The day passed swiftly, and by the time they returned to the center it was late in the evening. Jensen was tired, but felt accomplished. He’d hauled a lot of scrap metal, and helped dismantle the truck that had broken down on him and begun all of his current trials, and, best of all, Jared had shown him the spaceship that they would be traveling in.

“Does she have a name?” Jensen had asked. He wasn’t sure about the bulbous craft Jared had shown him. It certainly lacked the streamlined shape he’d expected from the sensos, looking more like a globe than anything else.

“Well, kinda,” murmured Jared. “I guess she’s Juliet. The call sign is JTP - Juliet Tango Papa. Guess she’s named after me.”

“Yeah?” Jensen looked intrigued. “What’s the T for?”

“Hah! If I told you, I’d have to kill you,” smirked Jared. He winked at Jensen’s resulting pout. “Oh, okay, it’s for Tristan.”

Jensen thought about that, and then gave him a smile. “So if I were to call you Tristan, you’d probably find it annoying, right?”

“Like I said, I’d have to kill you. Better not even consider it,” responded Jared.

“Spoilsport!” Jensen shot him a look out of the corner of his eyes. “So when are we gonna climb into this flying saucepan?” He paused, frowning. “It does fly, doesn’t it?”

“Of course it flies,” snorted Jared, somewhat indignant. “And I guess that with two of us to do the work, we’ll probably be able to get on our way next week.” Jared was grinning happily, probably already mentally planning his flight path, and Jensen rubbed his hands together. Whatever he could say about this life he’d fallen into, it was certainly not boring.

  
  


_Pride is Unacceptable. Remember that you are nothing to the Light, and that you are here only to serve it. Do not take pride in that, but be thankful._

The week went by very quickly, and ten days after Jensen had come to Tulsa and discovered his true identity, he was packing to go to Mars, a place he’d believed was an ideal that had been put forward by the Guardians to stand for paradise. He was excited, and although he had experienced a number of panic attacks throughout the past week or so, he was, on the whole, happy to leave Eric behind and become Jensen. Jensen felt a lot more in control than Eric ever had, and it felt good, although he was beyond tired. Excitement had kept him awake, his brain working overtime despite his physical exhaustion from the hard labor entailed in preparing the cargo for the journey.

He and Jared had completed the inventory of their cargo the night before, and Jared had promised him that, once they had passed the moon and were on their way to Mars, he could sleep for as long as he liked. He was looking forward to it.

As previously related, the ship was totally unlike anything that Jensen had pictured in his mind. It was bulbous, low to the ground and sported stubby little wings that didn’t seem adequate for flight. The cabin was at the apex of it, and below was the hold which they had packed with scrap metal, glass and rubber to be recycled and reused by the manufacturers on Mars. He wondered just how it would get off the ground, given that there was no apparent means of propulsion. When he asked Jared about that, the other man had just smiled and said that it worked on the tomato sauce and white shirt principle.

“You know how tomato sauce seems to be attracted to white clothing?” he said, smirking. “We’ll just smear the front of the ship with tomato sauce and then fire the white shirts out of the nose. The ship will automatically launch itself after it.”

At that point, Jensen, who didn’t have a clue what tomato sauce was, but who knew when he was being played, smacked the back of Jared’s head and went off to bug Misha for tales of his Tartar ancestors, leaving Jared to snicker and plot his course.

Once on board the little ship, with their flight path calculated, Jared finally told Jensen that he’d won the ship in a poker game, and that it was a relic from Before the End Times. He explained that it worked on an anti-gravity unit, and as he set the craft in motion, the entire ship bobbed noiselessly into the air.

“So let me get this straight.” Jensen frowned as he watched first Tulsa and then the entire state of Oklahoma recede into the distance beneath him until all that was visible in the viewer was the disk of blue and brown and green, showing nothing of the poison that rendered most of it uninhabitable. “I’m essentially going into space with a card shark, on my way to a mythical world, in an antique tin can that its owner has no clue how to maintain?”

Jared smirked at him. “And they tell me I’m the one that’s insane.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Between me and Misha, we’ve pretty much taken her apart and rebuilt her from scratch. I’m pretty sure we know how to maintain her. Whether or not we could re-create her I couldn’t say, but I am proud to tell you that I know what makes her tick.”

Gazing at Jared, Jensen finally nodded and returned to looking back at the rapidly fading world he was leaving behind. On the one hand, he thought, even though he didn’t have a clue what he was getting into, the Guardians of the Lone Star wouldn’t be following him. On the other... he was in space with a guy who might well be a lunatic, despite that smile that made things quiver inside him. He wondered why he felt so safe in Jared’s company, and wasn’t quite sure why he’d been so taken with Jared from the first time he’d met the big scavenger.

  
  


  
  


_Man is born blind and sinning, and base desires are his only thought. Only through the Light can he be saved._

Space felt a little strange. Once away from the Earth, with nothing weighing him down, sleep came easily, and, just as Jared had said, for the first time in several weeks he was able to catch up on his sleep, floating peacefully in the center of the cabin. He woke to find that somehow he and Jared had fetched up alongside each other in their sleep as if drawn by invisible bands. It felt wonderful to be pressed alongside that warm body.

The lack of gravity was both fascinating and, at times, tedious. It was only when Jared introduced Jensen to the magnetic overshoes that he could use to adhere to the sides of the craft that he was able to stop himself from floating aimlessly away from whatever he set out to do just at the most inconvenient second every time.

Jared had shown him the engine - such as it was - and allowed him to handle the controls, and the flight progressed uneventfully, a steady progress past the moon and out into the emptiness beyond it. Jensen really liked the peace of space, not to mention the opportunity to really get to know Jared. He had known that Jared held some attraction for him, but it was only over the days that their journey lasted that he began to appreciate the other man’s intelligence and his sunny nature. He began to see that Jared at his back was something of value, and this knowledge, blended with the weird warmth that proximity to Jared imbued in him, made him think that he was beginning to become addicted to the young scavenger.

Things changed on the final day of their trek across the cosmos. They were approaching Deimos, which Jared had informed Jensen was the processing station for entry to the Martian surface, and their path was locked in. Jared brought out an aerosol of Plasderm and reached to snag Jensen’s wrist.

“What...?” Jensen was baffled, and he tugged on his hand, trying to pull away from Jared.

“Come on, Jen, I need to cover this up.” Jared turned his wrist so that the pink triangle was visible and traced it with one long forefinger.

“Why?” Jensen felt his wrist tingle at the touch and frowned, still puzzled. That stupid birthmark always seemed to fascinate his companion, and he didn’t have a clue why.

“It’s a tattoo.” Jared sounded stern. “They put it there when you were taken. It’s there as a warning that you are gay.”

“Gay?” Jensen didn’t think he’d ever heard the term before. “What are you talking about?”

There was a pause, and Jensen didn’t think that Jared would answer. When he finally did, his eyes had filled with tears. “Gay, my beautiful innocent, means that you are attracted to your own sex. You are a lover of men rather than women, and in the eyes of the Followers of the Light that means you are Abomination. They won’t allow you to set foot on Mars if they know that you’re gay, for fear that you’ll corrupt all those handsome, indoctrinated young men who have never had a chance to find out what their true desires are.”

Jensen froze. Jared had called him beautiful. That was his first thought. Then he began to process what else he’d said. “I don’t love men. I had a wife...” Even as he was speaking, he was remembering his encounters with Danneel, and the feeling that he really didn’t know why he was there with her, and things began to slot into place. Jared’s effect on him finally became completely clear, and with the realization came renewed anger.

He held his wrist out for Jared, even while in his head he played over some of the things Matt had said in the holovid he’d watched. Jared began to spray the Plasderm over the tattoo, and Jensen pondered. “Wait a minute. Was I... was I married to Matt?”

“To be honest, I don’t think you were married. I suspect that you were in love with each other, but I don’t see what opportunity there would have been for the son of one of the leaders of the order and the son of the high priest to actually get down and dirty.” Jared rubbed the drying Plasderm over Jensen’s wrist to smooth it out before it dried completely. “I think that they robbed you of the chance to really find out what love was all about. They stole it from you.”

Jensen studied his wrist minutely, gazing at the place where Jared had sprayed, to buy himself some time, but the tattoo was apparently gone. He was almost tempted to take the Plasderm cover off and tell them to go fuck themselves, but then Jared clapped him on the shoulder and tied on a bracelet that was composed of different metallic beads. “This looks pretty, but it’s more than that,” he said. “Misha gave me one for each of us. It’s easy to turn on, and while it’s on it enables us to communicate. That might become important if one or the other of us gets into trouble while we’re down there. If nothing else, it will allow us to get information from the other person before we run.”

Jensen was still frowning. Finally, he raised his eyes to Jared’s. “I don’t understand,” he whispered. “What kind of chance did they take from me? Why would they do that?”

Their gazes met and held. The familiar swooping sensation tingled through his stomach as they stared at each other, and then Jared reached forward to slide long, gentle fingers around the back of Jensen’s neck and draw him close. Jensen flailed a little as he was tugged in, and his feet trailed out behind him since he wasn’t wearing his magnetic cleats.

For a moment, he thought that his heart would pound straight out of his chest, it was beating so hard. As Jared bent in and their lips grazed each other, Jensen drew in a shuddery breath. Jared froze, then pulled back, frowning.

“I... I’m sorry.”

“Sorry? Why?” Jensen had closed his eyes, the better to feel the kiss he’d thought was coming, but now they flew open, round with surprise at Jared’s sudden withdrawal.

“You have a wife. I guess I overstepped my boundaries a little because I wanted to...” Whatever Jared had been going to say remained unspoken. Jensen reached forward and hauled him back in, fitting their mouths together somewhat clumsily and stifling any further speech. This time, the kiss was much longer as Jensen sank his fingers into Jared’s hair and held him in position.

Kissing Jared was a revelation. He hadn’t particularly enjoyed kissing Danneel, and sex with her had been perfunctory and mostly initiated by her. When Jared pulled him in close he’d experienced a heat down deep in his guts that made him shiver, made him clutch at Jared and allow Jared’s tongue to part his lips and delve deep inside his mouth. He wanted the contact, needed the swoop and swirl of emotion as his body tingled, arousal heating him until he thought he might just burst with the need.

Jensen shuddered. A stray memory came to him, other arms around him and a tender mouth pressed against his, less forceful, more gentle. A voice he recognized as belonging to Matt murmured gentle words against his lips, and he pulled back from Jared, raising his hands to fend off the wall as he found himself floating, unanchored, towards the instrument panel.

“I... remembered,” he whispered as Jared moved to pursue him. “Matt was the one I loved.”

Reaching to grab Jensen’s arm and stabilize him, Jared smiled. “It’ll come back to you, Jen. You’ll know what they took from you.”

Whatever Jensen would have said was lost, because at that precise moment the radio crackled into life. “Identify yourself, vessel Juliet Tango Papa 1. What is the purpose of your visit?”

Skimming over to the controls, Jared bent to speak into the microphone. “This is Juliet Tango Papa 1. Jared Padalecki and crew bringing in salvage for GuardianCorp.”

There was a brief pause and then, “Remain in orbit above Phobos and state the identity of your crew members.”

Jared murmured assent. He was prepared for this. “Crew member is new to Mars. ID unassigned, name Alec McDowell.”

The announcement sent a mild thrill through Jensen as he listened. This was going to be it. He was about to return to the place where he’d grown up, even though he didn’t remember it at all, and once there, he would be able to get the rest of his memories back and redress the wrongs done to him and to Matt. He wished he could remember more about Matt. He’d felt that desperate sensation of loss in the memory of his re-education. He’d heard Matt’s agonized cries as he’d died and now he was determined to avenge his loss.

“Proceed to Deimos Dock 4 and remain with your vessel.” The instructions were curt, and the radio cut out then, leaving Jared to do as he’d been bidden.

The spacecraft landed on the tiny moon without the slightest bump, and Jared turned to Jensen. “Now we wait for them to inspect us and make sure we’re not Abominations. Then they’ll let us down onto Mars.”

“It’s kinda scary. They’re completely without any feelings.” Jensen was rubbing his hands together in a familiar, nervous mannerism.

“They’re doing their job.” Jared reached to hug him. “Don’t forget, there are mutants and Abominations back on Earth, and they are convinced that they need to keep Mars pure. They’re afraid of the unknown. They’ve never actually met an Abomination before, and the unknown terrifies them.”

Nodding, Jensen allowed himself the comfort of Jared’s arms until the banging on the hatchway of the spaceship announced the arrival of the Martian customs officers.

  
  


_The Light is master, and mankind are its servants. A good servant does not question. A bad servant is Unacceptable to the Light._

The official uniforms were intimidating to Jensen at first, reminding him of the Guardians back in Dallas. He shuddered to think what it might be like to face an Inquisitor once more, knowing what he knew now, feeling what he felt now. But Jared’s hand on his arm grounded him, reminded him that these kids in the uniforms were likely just as frightened of him as he was of them.

Jared’s casual touch had also triggered the swooping feeling he was quickly learning to associate with the big scavenger. But the incongruity of the forbidden (not even imagined in the most secret places in their mind, much less spoken of) emotions contrasted with the meticulous formality of the customs officers sent his mind full circle to Guardian Inquisitors and being shriven of unconscionable sins.

Still, he followed Jared’s lead, hiding behind the bigger man. Jared seemed comfortable leading the conversation, and Jensen was more than happy to let him. Besides, Jared knew the situation better, these people (or at least people like them) better. As Jared was explaining the situation to the uniform that seemed to be in control, another man cautiously approached Jensen.

“You are new?” asked the young officer. “Do you have papers?”

Jensen was prepared for this. They’d planned extensively for this, but in all of those plans, Jared was beside him as he answered the necessary questions, not over there answering who knew what questions of his own. Jensen wondered if this was all normal, or if they’d tripped some alarm and were about to be detained. Nothing scared Jensen more right now than the thought of being re-educated after finally having a taste of the truth. But he trusted in the plan, raised his chin in the air slightly and produced the documents Misha had so meticulously forged for him.

It seemed to Jensen to be an agonizingly long drawn out affair when he felt it should be short and routine. A few quick glances at Jared reassured him, and he breathed easier for a time, grounded by his companion’s apparently relaxed attitude. Finally, the officers left them back in their ship, keeping their documents. Apparently they’d passed muster, but the ship (with them in it) still had to be scanned for stowaway mutants or Abominations. Jared took it in stride, saying it was normal and routine, happened every two or three trips up, but there had never been any real problems. And even if there were, their contingency plans had contingency plans, all designed to save Jensen at all costs. Jensen had argued that Jared was just as important to the rebellion, maybe even more so, than Jensen, but the plans remained unaltered. The best response to his objection had been an enigmatic intimation from Misha that if Jensen saved himself, Jared would find a way to tag along. Then everyone (except Jensen) had laughed, and the matter was considered settled, although Jensen still didn’t get it, didn’t understand his importance to the movement.

Jared didn’t discount his apprehension, but he did try to explain why everyone in the movement treated Jensen like the holy grail. Jared got that Jensen was primarily a person, and only then an unwitting pawn in a game that he didn’t understand. The leaders of the movement were sure that he was the key to some super secret project that would save them, give them the leverage they needed to escape the Divine and his army of priests and Guardians forever. Jared didn’t really understand _how_ Jensen would save them all, but he had an unshakeable faith that he would. He held up as evidence all the things that Dick and Misha had always said would be true when they found Jensen, and so far, all of them had been. Even Jensen had to admit that they knew much more about his life than he ever had. So maybe there was more to this grand plan than he knew. He just hoped that his fractured memories would give up the important piece of information at the right time to keep the whole plan from crashing and burning around their ears while he and all his new friends were clapped in irons and hauled off to who knew where.

All of this had been talked over many times, and they had never really reached any resolution. Jensen was holding onto hope that he could salvage some bits of his new life, especially the bits with Jared in. He couldn’t imagine going back to his dull, boring life with a dull, boring job and, most especially, his dull, boring wife. Danneel was beautiful, true enough, but her beauty was lost on him. He just wasn’t Eric Brady any more. He wasn’t sure when he’d begun to feel this way, but there was no turning back for him now.

It seemed as if all of this was going through his head for the millionth time. He couldn’t talk openly with Jared about it while they were under examination, and he certainly couldn’t gain comfort from touching Jared. After a while, Jared seemed to realize what he needed, so he had led Jensen to the one place off the ship where they were permitted to stray and had him sit on a low bench in the chapel. It seemed an odd choice until Jared took the seat across from him, knees touching his and hands occasionally brushing Jensen’s hands, knees, anything innocuous enough to get by their scanners and yet intimate enough to quiet Jensen’s fears. They remained there as if praying, knees to knees and gazing into one another’s eyes. It quieted Jensen’s fears somewhat, and Jared always seemed to know when they were getting out of hand again, because he’d wink at him or surreptitiously squeeze his knee or brush his hand.

They sat like that for what seemed to be hours, but was apparently much shorter than Jared was expecting, for he gave a start when one of the customs officials came in and spoke to the two guarding Jensen and Jared. Jensen overheard the words Seer and what sounded like Traci, and private shuttlepad. After what seemed to be a bit of argument, the most senior of the three officers approached Jared and Jensen.

“The Seer apologizes that you were detained and insists that you be conveyed immediately to her private shuttlepad. Your craft can remain here and we will process the salvage and transfer the water credits, plus a 10% inconvenience charge, into the usual account.” The officer was obviously trying to be overly polite and apologetic, but managed instead to appear constipated. Nevertheless, the boys weren’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. If this Traci person could get them access to the temple, the place where Misha and Dick were sure was most likely to trigger the memories in Jensen’s head that would save them all, who were they to complain?

A quick, whispered conversation with Jared revealed that he didn’t know much more than Jensen did about this Seer, but that she was more likely to be on their side than anyone else they knew of on Mars. “Traci Dinwiddie is a bit of a wild card in the Martian aristocracy. She doesn’t fit in, but they can’t deny her power. So she is reluctantly welcomed wherever she chooses to go. I believe that she very rarely takes advantage of that, preferring to live her life as a virtual recluse.” Jared whispered, trying not to catch the attention of the shuttle pilot, sitting a mere few feet away, intent on his readouts. He continued to pilot the shuttle, hearing muffled by the headphones he wore, and it seemed that he would ferry his passengers to wherever they were going without paying any attention to them.

“Matt mentioned that we should seek out a Traci in his holovid. Do you think this might be who he was talking about?” Jensen whispered excitedly.

“It very well could be! We could hardly make a better friend,” Jared continued. “Or a worse enemy. But I think this is our best shot at finding out what we need to know. And I think it’s a good sign that she has chosen to take an interest in you ...” Jensen shot him a look, and he grinned, quickly amending his statement, “In _us_ , even though she hasn’t cared a whit about me in the dozens of times I’ve dropped off salvage in the past.”

“We’ll just play it by ear, like we’ve done everything else since you turned my world upside down.” When Jared looked forlorn, Jensen elbowed him in the ribs and continued even more quietly, “You know what? No matter what happens from here on, I wouldn’t change a thing. And it’s more than just having learned I’ve been living a lie; it’s about all the people I’ve met. It’s about meeting you.” Jensen risked a comforting pat on Jared’s arm. The pilot continued to ignore them. “No way would I want to continue in that sham of a marriage when I could have something ... real, with you”

Jared flushed as Jensen’s words sank in. Jensen watched as his cheeks pinked, sensed the shudder go through him and felt that tantalizing frisson of excitement hit him again as the realization that he’d had such an effect on Jared sank in. “I’m pretty much scared to death, but I’ll be fine as long as you’re with me, man,” he said. “Just don’t think of leaving me alone, all right?”

“You can be sure of that!” Jared’s voice was soft, full of emotion, and his hand twitched as if he wanted to touch Jensen, but remained in his lap. “Now I’ve found you, I’m sticking like glue.”

Giving a soft sigh of satisfaction, Jensen relaxed back in his seat and took an interest in the view of Mars beginning to fill the viewscreen as they approached. It was only a matter of minutes before he began to make out signs of human habitation on the red, dusty surface, spreading stark white across the planet as if they were patches of some fungus, encroaching on the ground below.

“We are approaching Righteousness,” announced the pilot, removing his headphones and turning to survey them. “The Seer will be present when we land. You should abase yourself before her.”

“Abase self, Got it.” Jared gave the pilot a winning smile, and Jensen held his breath, afraid that his companion had offended the man. However, the only response the pilot gave to Jared was a sour smile that promised bad things if ever he should find Jared alone.

“The Seer is respected by the temple of the Light.”

Jensen knew his cue and nodded solemnly. “Praise to the Light,” he murmured, and the pilot nodded, turning back to his instruments, leaving him to fret over the fact that the place to which they were headed was called Righteousness.

He didn’t have to fret for long. The shuttle touched down a few moments later, and the pilot removed his headphones again, turning to them. “Once the shuttle doors are open you may disembark,” he said. “Walk in the Light.”

“May you also walk in the Light,” muttered Jensen, hastily curtailing any potential sarcasm that might emanate from his companion. Jared had the grace to hang his head at that, and Jensen gave him an encouraging smile as he waited for the pilot to tell them they could leave.

There was a clang from somewhere overhead, and then the shuttle door opened to reveal a room that looked a little like a garage, with another, somewhat larger shuttlecraft in it, and a workbench containing assorted tools and engine parts behind it. Beyond that was a little jetcar runabout that Jensen coveted as soon as he saw it. There was also a tall, dark haired, exotic looking woman waiting beside a door to one side, and as the two men clambered out of the shuttle, she beckoned them over and then through the door, closing it behind him.

“Hold on a minute,” she muttered. “I have to let that creep out of my hangar.” Swiftly thumbing controls, she watched on a monitor as the roof doors slid backwards and the little space shuttle took off again. Once the roof had closed up again, she turned to them and smiled.

“Come on in. You could probably use a drink and something to eat after putting up with the zombies up on Deimos.” She flipped off the switches that were displaying the inside of the hangar and led the way through to another passageway and along to a spacious kitchen.

“Make yourself at home,” she called over her shoulder as she moved over to a replicator. “I assume you want real food and not the crap the Guardians eat?”

Jensen looked puzzled, and it was Jared who beamed enthusiastically. “Steak?” he asked, hopefully.

Nodding, she turned to program the replicator, while Jensen relaxed. He’d eaten steak, so he wasn’t afraid that it would be something unpleasant, and at least he would be sure that the steak hadn’t come from some Abomination like a bunny. Not that he’d minded eating bunny, necessarily.

“How did you know we were coming?” he asked. “Why did you bring us here?”

“I saw it,” she said, moving over to a cupboard and taking out several mugs. “You’re the one in the Prophecy who will return us to our home.” She raised her eyebrows at Jensen’s confused expression. “That’s why they call me the Seer,” she said. “I foresee events, and they are truth.”

“Yeah, but the Prophecy?” Jensen frowned, scratched the back of his neck and looked at Jared in mute appeal.

“You know the history, don’t you?” Traci gave him a considering look. “When the End Times happened, we had to leave our homes behind, because they were poisoned. The lucky ones - the ones with money - came here to Mars, to Righteousness, and the ones who were not so lucky stayed behind and died in their millions, or sustained terrible damage to their genetic makeup.” She paused to pour out a strong, aromatic liquid into the mugs from a steaming pot and pushed one over to each of them, telling Jensen it was called chocolate. “The Prophecy appeared on the wall of the main temple during the first year of its existence. Nobody knows who wrote it, but it said that an innocent would return to the temple to lead us back to Earth.”

“An innocent?” Jensen blushed and Jared chuckled at his expression. “Well, I guess in some ways I am. As far as I know, I only began to live a couple of weeks ago. Before that I was someone else.”

“Well, we’re aiming to go to the temple anyway, aren’t we?” Jared put his arm around Jensen and pulled him close. Jensen stiffened at first, but relaxed when he saw that Traci was unfazed by the gesture.

“That’s why I decided to take a hand. The impure aren’t permitted into the inner temple, and coming up from the Earth defines you as impure, simply because you’re from Earth. If you are with me, on the other hand, you can wander freely.” The replicator beeped, and she pulled it open to reveal two plates of food. Jensen’s stomach growled as the fragrant scent reached him, and she laughed as she sauntered over to place one before him. “There, little one. Fill your belly, and then we can decide what needs to be done.”

“Why couldn’t we ever program our replicators to make real food?” Jensen wondered as he dug into his supper.

“I’m sure you could have,” Traci replied. “You just didn’t know what to ask for.”

  
  


_All things are interconnected and flourish only according to the will of the Light. Only those that walk in the Light will flourish._

Meal over, Jensen yawned, comfortably full and feeling incredibly grateful to be back in the clutches of gravity, even though it was a lesser pull than he was accustomed to back on Earth. He slumped against Jared’s side, happy to indulge in a few minutes of contemplation before taking on new challenges. He was still afraid, but it was more a fear of failing than anything else. He knew that he had no real memory of the life he’d lived on Mars, and he had even less idea of what he was expected to do now that he was back here, and search his brain as he might, there were no sudden flashes of memory, and he was afraid that what he needed was gone forever.

Traci had led them to another room where they could relax for a while and all three of them were sitting, gazing out of the window onto the city of Righteousness, which was laid out below them like so many children’s building blocks. The sun was almost setting, Phobos was overhead, and the world was bathed in an eerie red light which threw lengthy shadows on the sterile streets below. Turning his eyes to the temple, Jensen felt a jolt of apprehension strike through him, and he suddenly wished he hadn’t eaten quite so well.

The temple was bathed in an orange-red light, its minarets looming over the austere city like soldiers. The central spire, placed perfectly to capture the sun’s last ray of light before it slid down over the horizon, towered above, an ominous symbol of the Guardians’ dominance over all who dwelled there.

He felt, rather than saw, Traci rise and move to stand behind him. When she spoke, it felt as though she were speaking telepathically rather than out loud, and when he glanced at Jared, he didn’t appear to have heard anything.

“Jensen, I am going to touch your head. Don’t be afraid any more.” He had no time to turn before he felt her cool fingers slide onto his forehead. He froze, disconcerted, and heard her voice in his head once more, murmuring a soothing mantra as her hands began to caress his temples. All of a sudden, drowsiness overcame him, and he gave a gentle sigh and fell asleep.

He awoke just as the last rays of the descending sun blazed through the eye at the top of the central spire, tripping the switch that turned on the glows that would illuminate the city throughout the night. As the glows began to brighten, and the sun at last winked out, the Prayer for the Return of the Light was broadcast, the song swelling through a hundred speakers around the temple, the strong voices of the priests intoning the words. Jensen found himself mumbling them, the need to do so strong enough that it verged on compulsion.

“We offer up all that we are to the Light, so that the Fellowship may prosper and that we might expect to return from the Darkness to that Light.” Jared was gazing at him, lips quirked in amusement.

“Boy, you’re conditioned, aren’t you?” Traci was no longer standing behind him, but had just re-entered the room, carrying more of the delicious chocolate drink they’d had earlier. “Here. Drink this, both of you. You’ll sleep here tonight and then tomorrow you’ll get out there and fulfill the Prophecy.” She gave Jensen a wink and a smile. “I’m counting on you, kiddo. Don’t let me down, will you.”

Privately, Jensen wasn’t sure if he would be able to sleep at all. His head was buzzing with images, and whatever Traci had done to him had stirred up threads of memories that swirled aimlessly around without him being able to grasp a single one. “I feel really strange,” he said as he tried to focus on her.

Jared looked concerned at his words. “What’s wrong?” he asked, reaching for him and pulling him close to sling a protective arm around him.

“I don’t know...” Jensen shook his head, pale and trembling. “Everything... It’s going through my head. Can’t think...”

“Help him!” Jared turned to Traci, and Jensen thought that he heard panic in his voice. “He’s sick. There’s something wrong with him.”

“He will be fine.” Traci’s cool contralto settled his fears once more. “He just needs to sleep now. I have re-awakened memories of the past in him, and he must integrate them. Drink the liquid I’ve brought to you. It will help... both of you.”

Nodding, Jared took the two mugs from her and passed one over to Jensen. It wasn’t quite the same as the stuff she’d given them before, and, almost before he had finished, his eyelids had begun to droop. No sooner had he tumbled into the bed she offered them than he was sleeping soundly, barely conscious of Jared’s warm body snuggled up behind him.

  
  


_The distance between those who are acceptable in the Light and those that the Light will shun is that of ten thousand kilometers, and yet it can be crossed with but a single step._

The morning, when it came, was overcast, and the sun was faint through a cloud of red dust. It was dark enough that the glows were still lit, and it seemed as if the light had abandoned them. By the time Jensen woke up, both Jared and Traci had been awake for some time, conspiring together in the kitchen over breakfast preparations. When Jensen stumbled in, knuckling his eyes, the two of them looked up and smiled.

  
  


“Good morning to you, sleepy head.” Traci brought over a platter of some kind of smoked meat and bread, placing it in front of Jensen with a gentle pat on his shoulder.

“Feeling any better?” Jared was pouring him a cup of something that Traci said was called mocha. “You have to try this stuff, Jen, it’s amazing.”

“I feel pretty good.” Jensen accepted the offerings with thanks and dug into the food, making appreciative noises as he took his first bite.

“What do you remember?” Traci was watching him, her expression intent as he applied himself to his breakfast. “Do you remember walking in the temple?”

For a moment, Jensen paused, then looked up to meet her eyes. “Matt and I...” He stopped, his eyes wide. “I remember. I remember it all.” He rose to his feet. “We have to go.”

“Finish your breakfast first,” laughed Jared, pressing him back down onto his seat.

“Seriously,” said Traci. “Whatever you feel must be urgently addressed has already been waiting for four years; it can surely wait another half an hour while you eat.”

Jensen gave a sigh. He realized that he was perhaps a little jumpy and that the other two were right. He nodded and re-applied himself to the food on his plate, eating as fast as he could. Finally, plate empty, he stood up again. “Now can we go?” He pulled a face at Jared. “I’m just scared that I’m going to forget stuff again. Strike while the iron’s hot, you know?”

Traci nodded and gathered up their dishes, placing them in the sanitizer. “As you can see, there is a dust storm out there, so today will be a day of penance. There will be very few in town who aren’t heading to the temple to pray for the return of the Light.”

“They should all come down to Earth,” murmured Jared. “The light here is pretty pathetic and faded. You wouldn’t believe just how much brighter it is there. This place is dismal by comparison.”

Traci sighed. “If you succeed in your task, I will come to Earth for sure. I have been building my muscle mass specifically so that I can be comfortable there. But I’ve been waiting here for you, little man. I knew you would need my help to start the healing.” She beckoned them and led the pair of them out through her hallway, reaching into a closet there to hand them both robes that proclaimed that they were acolytes of the Great Seer. “Wearing these will give you the permissions you may need to wander the temple freely, at least so long as I accompany you. Nobody challenges the Seer.”

“What do you do as the Seer?” Jared looked at Jensen, one eyebrow raised, and Jensen shrugged. He didn’t know either.

“I foretell the future. For instance, I know when there will be storms and I notify the priesthood, so they can set up their little ceremonies and fool the public.” She smirked. “They despise me as Abomination, but they can’t do without me, because I enable them to appear omniscient.”

“Why have you been helping them? It seems almost as if you are aiding them now. How can we trust you?” Jared stepped in front of Jensen as if to protect him. “I thought you wanted to overthrow them and return the world to balance once more.”

“Hush! It’s okay,” murmured Traci. “You forget that I’m a Seer. I foresee more than mere dust storms, my dear. Helping the priesthood has caused them to trust me, and even revere me, but my plans have been in place for a very long time, and more than anything, I want the Earth in balance once more. This poisoning of the most beautiful planet in the universe must stop.”

Turning away, she put on her own robe and then pulled open the door to her hangar. “So now we will make a show of descending to pray. Jensen, do you know where we need to go?”

Jensen rifled through his newly minted memories and pictured the temple and the path that he somehow knew he must take. “The garden,” he said. “We need to get to the garden.”

They climbed into the small craft that Jensen had coveted earlier, and a few moments later they were rising up through the open roof of the hanger, ready to make their way down from the high tower in which Traci’s home was located. The city looked sterile, spires of glass and chromed metal, the only plants hidden away to be enjoyed by the priesthood, and no bright colors visible anywhere. Jensen thought of the chaotic colors of the Earthly landscape and wondered why anyone would choose to live this way. The dull red dust that was settling in drifts on everything horizontal was the only color to be seen, and below them, making their way along the road, penitents on their way to pray were all clad in grey, heads hanging as they attempted to keep the fine dust out of their eyes and mouths.

“I remember a large tree,” said Jensen, slowly. “It was in a garden inside the temple. Matt carved our names into the bark of the tree, and then he put a clue beside it. Then he... then he kissed me. It was the first time... the only time, and I never did see what he’d put on the tree, because that’s when they came to take us for re-education.” A tear rolled down his face. “After that, I never saw him again.”

Jared squeezed his hand, unable to do anything more overt to comfort him without being conspicuous. “You’re doing so well, Jen. We’re going to find out what he wrote now, so that what your Matt did can save the whole world for us. I’m sorry that he’s gone, love, but I know that he didn’t die in vain.”

They were approaching the roof of the temple now, and Traci brought her runabout down on a flat area of the roof, and hopped out, followed by the two men. They were met by a grim faced Guardian, and Traci greeted him regally. He led them to an escalator which conveyed them down to the temple floor. “Go in the Light,” murmured the Guardian.

“The Light will return within the hour,” said Traci. “Your prayers have been fruitful and are heard.”

The Guardian bowed solemnly and then stood watching as Traci led them away through the milling crowd of supplicants, towards where the temple garden awaited them.

The garden itself was surprisingly lush. There were flowers and a small pool with a tinkling fountain that glittered under the arc lamps that were adding to the weak sunlight. An energy screen held the dust at bay, and could be seen glittering as it worked to repel the flying dust.

“This garden is a monument to the memory of Earth as it was,” said Jensen, surprising everyone. “It’s a secret, kept only for the priesthood. Matt and I only found it because he was destined to succeed his father as one of the council of priests. Because of that, he was allowed to go wherever he wanted, and the fact that he was my friend was considered a great honor by _my_ father, who was... I don’t know, maybe still is, a lesser priest here.”

“Your father did penance for spawning Abomination, you know,” said Traci. “He is still here, but is no longer in line for promotion. I believe that he is very bitter.”

“Yeah,” growled Jensen. “Probably not as bitter as I am.” He stepped over some low growing shrubs and moved over to the tree that stood in the center of the garden. It was an oak, and among the branches hung bunches of mistletoe, symbols, he knew, of the sacred Light. “It’s grown a bit since I was here, but I can still see where Matt made our initials.”

“What does it say?” Jared came up behind Jensen to see where the inscription was marked on the tree’s sturdy trunk. “JA and MC. Okay, I get that. Those are your initials, but what is CS Lewis?”

“CS Lewis was an author,” said Traci. “He wrote a number of books Before the End Times. He was seen by some as the reason we chose Mars to emigrate to instead of just attempting to clean up the Earth when the war was done.”

“In that case, I guess we need to go and find some of his books,” suggested Jared.

“The library?” Jensen raised an eyebrow at Traci. “We should probably start in the library, right?”

The library was located at the other end of the temple grounds, and it took them quite a while to get there. Traci’s prediction of the storm abating within the hour had become common knowledge while they were in the garden, and they were impeded by priests and penitents alike coming to thank her and request blessings. Jared and Jensen soon found themselves assuming the role of bodyguards and once they had begun to work as such, they made better progress. Jared finally beckoned one of the white-robed Guardians and requested that they have a little privacy in the library, since the Seer wished to meditate for a time. Having uttered the request, the milling crowd was soon dispersed, and they found themselves at last able to approach the room that they were trying to reach.

Once inside the library, it took them very little time to find the section that held the books that CS Lewis had written. One by one they began to take them down from the shelves, leafing through each of them as they searched for any notes that might have been written in the margins. It was Jensen himself who finally took down the slim volume called “Out of the Silent Planet.” It appeared to be stuck, and he had to pull it quite hard, but finally it came free, and he held it in his hand, ready to search through its contents.

As he removed the book from the shelf, there was a loud click, and the entire bookshelf swung forward to reveal a small shelf behind, a shelf on which were several envelopes that appeared to be full of papers, a packet of microchips, and a small box containing two bottles of liquid and a spool of video.

“Another good reason for wearing robes,” smirked Traci, taking the box and causing it to disappear into the voluminous robes she wore. “Each of you take an envelope or two and see how well you can conceal it about your person. There’s plenty of room under those robes of yours.” She giggled as she watched the two of them valiantly shoving folders down the front of their pants and then attempting to walk straight. “Looking good, boys,” she said. “Think we can make it back home without losing our dignity?”

Jared closed the shelf back up and Jensen replaced the book, and then the two of them nodded. They were as ready as they would ever be to walk the gauntlet back to Traci’s runabout, and as far as Jensen was concerned, they couldn’t hurry enough.

As luck would have it, the Divine Guide Towards the Light, Mark Rolston himself, decided to accompany Traci on her return to her flyer, and Jensen found it really hard to keep himself from erupting into nervous giggles when he turned to be introduced to her new acolytes. She introduced the two of them as Sam and Dean Winchester, and said that they were brothers from the household of an artisan, but that she sensed the special gift in them and was training them. They were joined at the escalator by the priest who had first met them, and Rolston introduced him as his second-in-command, Christopher Heyerdahl, who still seemed somewhat forbidding even though he smiled at them. Jensen kept his head demurely lowered as he shook their hands, and hoped against hope that his face had changed enough in the past four years for him not to be recognizable. Heyerdahl looked to Jensen as though he would not think twice before ordering them to be put through an Inquisition. He breathed a huge sigh of relief once they were again sitting in the runabout and ready to return to Traci’s home.

As they took off, below them they could hear the speakers broadcasting the beginnings of the midday Prayer of Devotion to the Light as workers swept up the drifts of fine red dust that had covered the white of the temple steps. Jensen felt a little lightheaded. He elbowed Jared as they rose into the air. “That’s the call to negate yourself and become one with the Fellowship,” he said.

  
  


“Yeah, yeah. Negating myself as we speak,” nodded Jared, rolling his eyes. “What do you suppose is in all the stuff we got back there in the library?”

“Wait til we get home, children. You don’t want to lose any of it because you were careless, do you?” Traci deftly veered around a building and sank down on her landing pad, hitting the button that would lower it into the hanger through the open roof.

Back in Traci’s living quarters, they began to examine the papers they’d found. Most of them were blueprints for a water cleansing device, but some were for instructions on how to propagate a bacterium that would clean the pestilence from the soil. When Traci handed Jensen the box she’d been hiding, he studied the two bottles of liquid, and then, in a compartment below them, found a further small package of notes including a letter addressed to him.

_Jensen, love:_

_The fact that you’re reading this now means that we’re going to win at last. I’ve recorded full instructions on the vidwire that’s with this note, so watch it and it will tell you how to get rid of the toxins that keep the water contaminated. You’ll clean the water, and sow the seeds of renewed fertility in our home planet. I’m so proud of you, baby. I love you,_

_Matt  
_

Jensen read the small note through a couple of times, and he could see Matt’s face before him as he remembered. Matt was dead and gone, and before him he had a possible future with the young man in front of him, eagerly perusing the blueprints they had brought back. He felt a pang as he gently re-folded the letter and tucked it back into the box where it had been found, then turned to go and stand beside Jared. The memory was poignant. He had loved, and that love had never been fulfilled, but there was another person waiting for him right here, and Jensen was already half in love with him. Matt was a sweet memory, but Jared was right beside him, and Jensen was not going to lose again.

While the thoughts were still rushing through his brain, Jared turned to greet him enthusiastically. “Jen, baby, if these plans do what they are supposed to do, then we’ve got a chance to reclaim the whole of the badlands. This is... amazing.”

Smiling, Jensen put his arm around Jared’s waist. “I hope we can break the hold the Guardians have on the land. If we can at least achieve that, then it will all have been worthwhile.”

“You will,” said Traci, who had been out of the room for a moment, summoning the shuttle to take them back up to Deimos, where their ship awaited them. “I have something to give you for your journey. It isn’t much, but when the time comes, you’ll know what to do with it.” She produced a pair of small, silvery tubes and held them out in offering. “These are weapons. They are each loaded with 5 darts, and every one will kill a man. To use them, you will merely put the narrow end to your lips and blow once. The little projectile that emerges will kill almost instantly, so be very careful with them.” As Jared took one and peered into the end of it, she tugged it away from his face. “I mean it. The poison on each dart will be enough to kill even a man your size.”

Jensen had taken his from her with a murmur of thanks and tucked it into his boot with a pleased smile. “Just so long as I don’t somehow shoot myself in the foot it should be fine,” he said, provoking a laugh from both the Seer and Jared.

The communicator suddenly beeped to announce the imminent arrival of the shuttle that would carry them back to the station on Deimos and Traci quickly helped them to pack up the blueprints, then handed them a large basket full of food for consumption on their journey back to Earth before giving them both a hug and telling them she would see them on Earth once their mission was accomplished.

  
  


_Be wary of shallow desires, for they frequently can only be satisfied at the expense of Abomination._

The return to Deimos was uneventful. Each of them was lost in his own thoughts, and Jensen especially felt exhausted now that the mission was well on its way to completion. He dozed, and was shaken awake by Jared once they were back on the station, to tell him that it was time to return to their ship. He was brandishing the waybill, and crowing about the number of water credits he’d been paid. “Successful trip!” he announced as they closed the hatch and took their places to wait for the go ahead to launch. “We’ll be able to irrigate the entire plantation for the next several months.”

“Plantation?” It dawned on Jensen at that moment just how little he knew about his companion.

“Yeah. My family has a smallholding, and we grow vegetables for the Balance. It’s always hard to get enough water, and my trips out into the Desolation are what keep us going. This time was really worthwhile. Maybe we’ll never need to make another trip. Dude, I can’t wait to introduce you to my family. They’ll love you.” Impetuously, he pulled Jensen to him and kissed him hard. “Thank you!”

“Hey, I didn’t really do anything,” said Jensen, blushing. “I just came along to do some sightseeing.”

Jared snorted. “Yeah, right!” He cuffed Jensen around the back of the head, and they were about to engage in a tickle battle when the word came for them to leave. Deimos’s orbit was very rapid, and they had only a small window to get underway before they would have to wait for the next rotation. Suddenly all business, they scrambled to get off the little moonlet on time and away from the possibility that someone on Mars might have belatedly recognized Jensen.

Once back on their path to Earth, as they pulled out of orbit around Mars and into the space between Mars and the asteroid belt they were finally able to relax, and Jared turned to Jensen. “Regarding what you said while we were on the shuttle about possibly having something with me?”

Eyes wide, Jensen nodded. “I think...”

He didn’t have a chance to finish his sentence. Jared pulled him in close. “I don’t just think. I know,” he said and bent to kiss him.

Kissing Jared was soft and sweet and terrifying. Jensen felt as though he had tripped over the edge of the universe into another world - one where the Light was kind and did not burn him for transgressing. Jared’s arms around him were warm and safe, and he felt as if he were at home at last. Held there in free fall, his body pressed against firm, hard muscle.

He remembered Matt now, shy glances and furtive touching of their hands. The one soft, hesitant kiss they had shared before they were torn apart. He remembered the sweet, terrifying dizziness of young love. For that was what they had had, young love. It might have grown into something more mature, but it was snuffed out before it had a chance to grow. Jensen spared a moment for regret, to mourn what they might have had. But then Jared’s kisses drew him back to the present.

Jared’s mouth was tender, soft lips grazed his own, gently teasing. They kissed for a while, sweet press of lips, Jared’s large hand cupping Jensen’s cheek, stroking over his cheekbone and holding him firmly so that he could explore Jensen’s mouth.

Gasping, Jensen found himself pressing closer, wanting to sink into Jared and become a part of him. He murmured something to that effect and Jared claimed his mouth anew. This time Jared’s clever tongue stole into his mouth, probing and exploring as they clung to each other, the slight gravity out there between worlds pulling them together.

Jensen slid his fingers under Jared’s shirt, tracing the raised bumps of his spine and cataloguing them with the gentle graze of his fingertips. He felt rather than heard Jared groan, and Jared fumbled for the hem of Jensen’s T-shirt, sliding it up until they had to stop kissing to remove it. He gazed at Jared, taking in the other’s flushed face, fox-like eyes wide and dark with emotion, lips puffy and spit-shiny. How could this be wrong? It couldn’t possibly be wrong. He would defy the Guardians and take this for himself, because he deserved it, and because Jared was his.

Anchoring himself to Jared by tangling their legs together, he tugged and pulled at Jared’s clothing until he finally had him bare, big, brown, muscular body open for him, and at the center of it, his cock, red-purple and shiny as it oozed liquid from the tip. The sight made him shiver - there was fear in that brief shudder, and there was anticipation, but more than anything else there was want.

He slipped out of his own loose jeans and shoved them to one side to hang in the air alongside Jared’s shirt, and turned back to Jared himself, who had reached for him and begun to caress his arms, his sides, his shoulders. He gazed at Jared, wanted to touch that delicious cock, gazed down at his own stiff member and smirked as he reached to take hold of Jared’s. It felt like velvet over iron, and he pumped it, feeling the strange familiarity of another man’s dick, so nerve-wrackingly wrong and delicious and perfect. His own dick twitched, and Jared laughed softly, and Jensen felt a tingling surge flicker through him as Jared took hold of it, fisted it and began to stroke, hand keeping time with Jensen’s. It was heaven to Jensen, love starved and newly his own man. He wondered what Eric Brady would have thought, and laughed out loud, making Jared smile and kiss him again, juicy and wet as they worked each other, tenderness coated with sin.

It was Jensen who came first, eyes glued to Jared’s face as he watched him fall apart. The sudden gasp that Jared gave, and his face as he began to lose it, made Jensen shudder, sent the tingles through him to start a combustion down behind his balls. Gasping on his own account he felt his body tighten, felt every part of him draw in tight to focus on a single point of almost unbearable sweetness. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak, couldn’t do anything except shake himself apart as the feeling bloomed, sent tendrils out along his spine and through his cock, and he came, coating Jared’s hand with thick white cum as he ejaculated.

His hand stuttered on Jared’s dick, and Jared reached to cover it, keeping that steady rhythm for the few moments he still needed to follow Jensen over the cliff and down to completion.

The two of them floated together, arms locked around each other as they attempted to relearn how to breathe. Jensen clung to Jared, sticky and blissed out, his chest laboring to reacquaint his body with oxygen. Jared was pressing kisses to him even though he was still panting through the afterglow as he slowly came down, and Jensen thought he’d never been quite so happy.

“I love you.” Jared’s voice was husky, deeper than usual, a little hoarse.

“Oh, praise the Light,” whispered Jensen. “I love you so much.”

The two of them slept, sweaty and complete, bodies tight together as they sped through the vastness of space.

  
  


_Blessed are they that walk in the Light. The diligent will be favored._

The moon was half full, pale and ominous in the sky as they passed it, the deep tear in the fabric of it plainly visible from the terrible attack it had sustained back during the End Times. Jensen was glad when it fell behind them and faded from view, and allowed the Earth, shimmering blues and browns and greens, to unfold ahead. Mars might have been where he was born, but the Earth was home, and he was overjoyed to be on his way back to her.

The Earth had begun to fill the view from the vidscreen, and Jared was calculating how to slide their little craft into exactly the trajectory they needed in order to land back in Tulsa. Jensen held his breath, not knowing how he could help. When Jared finally settled back with a sigh of satisfaction, he gave Jensen a beaming smile. “I think that does it. We should be able to land in a few minutes. It’s about time to alert Richard to get the pad set up for us.”

Jensen returned his smile with a beaming one of his own. Space travel was awesome when they could make love in free fall, but he was really ready to try it again with his feet on the solid ground - or on a bed, whatever! “So we’re nearly home?” he asked.

“Yeah. Check down there.” Jared pointed to a twinkling cluster of lights that indicated a fairly sizeable settlement that glowed below in the darkness of North America. As they gazed down, they could see the daylight begin to sweep across the continent. “That’s Tulsa, right there. That’s where we’re going, and we’ll be landing just after dawn, so you’ll get to bring the Light back to Tulsa in more ways than one.”

He reached forward and tuned his communicator in to the frequency he needed and put out a call for the Tulsa Balance. He’d called three times when it crackled into life, and they heard Misha’s voice greet them. “If that’s you, Jay, you need to scramble. We’re under attack here, and if you can land at the old Oklahoma City airport instead it would probably be a really good idea. We have a research facility just west of there. I’ve notified Lindberg that you’ll be coming. I think you’ll find them interesting.”

“Are you guys okay? Will you need us to bring reinforcements?” Jared was frowning, evidently worried, and Jensen felt his heart lurch in his chest. This didn’t sound good.

“Might not be a bad idea,” said Misha. “I shouldn’t kill them all myself. That would be greedy.” He cut the connection at that point, and Jensen snickered as he imagined him with the sword of his ancestors between his teeth, rushing out to finish off a few Guardians before breakfast.

“Okay, so we head to OKC,” said Jared. He swiftly put out a call for the research station at the Oklahoma City Balance and finally aroused the person on watch, who announced herself to be called Katie and said she’d go wake her boss.

When her boss finally came on the line, he sounded as if he was still sleeping. “Yo, dude! You got Lindberg here at the Oklahoma City data station. What can I do you for?”

Explaining the situation as concisely as he could, Jared engaged the anti-gravity engine and began to reduce their altitude, ready to set down as soon as they were given a location that would take the weight of the ship. It took a few minutes, but then Katie came back on the line and told them that they were sending a beam for them to follow down to a landing pad they’d set up. “Lindy’s out recruiting reinforcements for Tulsa, but he’ll be back to meet you once you’re down. Stay in your craft when you put down. We’ll run an opaque corridor out to you so you don’t get radiation sickness.”

It didn’t take long for Jared’s instruments to pick up the promised beam, and, before they began their final descent, Jared made one last call, to his pal Chad Murray. “Hey, man,” Chad sounded overjoyed to hear from him, although a little surprised. “Sup? Haven’t heard from you for days.”

“I need you to come out to OKC to get me, dude. Jen and I would appreciate a ride to Tulsa. Can do?” He swiftly explained the predicament they were in and described the location of the research station they were making for.

“Fuck, yeah. There was a girl there I thought I’d like to know better, if you know what I mean.” Jensen could hear the leer in Chad’s voice despite the fact that he was in space, several miles above the Earth. “I’ll be there in a couple of hours. Okay?”

“Works for me,” nodded Jared. “It’ll be good to see your homely mug again. See you shortly, shorty.” He turned to Jensen and gave him a grin. “I can always depend on Chad. He’s been my buddy since I was a kid.”

Jensen nodded, momentarily somber. His childhood friend was dead and gone, and there was nobody from his past that he was able to depend on. He was glad for Jared, but in his heart he still hurt.

As Jared had predicted, dawn was breaking as they touched down, and it didn’t take long before an inflatable passageway had been run out to their location, allowing them to pass through to the shielded research station without being exposed to the dangers of the still radioactive city that crouched nearby, a toxic reminder of the End Times.

Once inside the station, they were introduced to the team there. Katie turned out to be a bubbly blonde, who had an extra finger on each hand which declared her an Abomination. Jensen liked her immediately and wondered when he’d become impervious to the mutations that had so terrified him when he was still Eric Brady. Lindberg, the head researcher, was a sleepy eyed, pale man who greeted them with hugs all round and the offer of what he said was some of their best bud, ready packed in a pipe. As Jensen declined, not actually sure what best bud might be, Lindberg’s second in command, whose name was Gabe, offered to show them the station and waxed lyrical about the grow-op they had in one of the bunkers.

The head researcher had rounded up around 20 battle-scarred veterans to accompany them back to Tulsa, and they were all spoiling for a fight, each of them unsure what had provoked the attack on Balance HQ, but determined to fight in its defense. They were all anxious to get going, afraid that they’d miss the opportunity to kick some Guardian ass, so as soon as Chad had pulled up in his car, they all set off on the road back to Tulsa and the headquarters of the Balanced Earth Society.

They were a motley assortment of travelers. Not all of them displayed the telltale signs of Abomination, but several of them did, disfigured and proud. They all carried weapons, however, some of them old school and others that seemed to be new inventions the like of which Jensen had never even imagined. Without exception each one of them seemed excited to be able to fight against the Guardians of the Lone Star Colony. As they readied themselves to head for Tulsa, there was an aura of suppressed excitement about them that fairly made the air crackle.

As they began to move out, the small army boarded whatever vehicles they could. One or two rode on dirt bikes that had been lovingly restored. Katie, now clad in leather, hopped onto the lead bike behind a hugely muscled older gentleman named Jim, who turned out to be the proprietor of the cantina where Jensen had first eaten steak. Some boarded a dilapidated truck, piling into the truck bed until it was overflowing with hardened denizens of the Desolation. There were several smaller vehicles, and at the rear came Jared and Jensen, riding in Chad’s car. They had collected whatever weapons they could from the research lab - a pistol each and a couple of knives which they’d spent time sharpening on a borrowed whetstone while they waited for Chad to arrive. As they were boarding the car, Jim had passed over one of his hand bazookas to Jared. “Got no room for this on my bike, but you look strong enough,” he gritted. “Watch for the recoil - it’s a bitch!”

Jared had thanked him gravely and slung it across his back after checking out the controls and making sure it was loaded. Jensen, who was carrying Matt’s notes in a backpack, had stuffed his gun into the back of his jeans, and Jared slipped his into a pocket in his shirt.

They’d been on the road for a little more than an hour, and the sun was hotter than ever, when Chad suddenly swore and the car clattered to a stop. “Fuck!” The man pounded on the dash as he turned to the two men he was ferrying. “Something’s wrong. I don’t have a clue. It isn’t lack of gas, I know that. We’ve got plenty of fuel.”

Shrugging, Jensen pushed open the door. “I guess we should take a look. Maybe something got caught in the tracks,” he said, looking at Jared for confirmation. Jared nodded and as Jensen got out to walk around the vehicle inspecting the tracks and making sure they were clear, Jared climbed out on the opposite side of the car. “Pop the hood, dude. Let me see if there’s anything I can find in there.”

Chad nodded and bent as if to do as Jared had said, but as Jared closed the car door he straightened up and the car roared to life as he took off, leaving both men standing gaping after him.

  
  


“Jay?” Jensen was the first to speak.

“I don’t know.” Jared spread his hands wide, baffled. “I got nothing. He’s never done anything like that before.”

“What do we do now?” Jensen looked around, suddenly fearful of an attack by bunnies. He just knew they were waiting to take revenge on him for enjoying them in a stew.

“I’ve got my trusty pea-shooter here,” murmured Jared, gesturing at the bazooka. “We should be okay if we aren’t out here after dark. Guess we start walking. We’re only about 25 or so miles from Tulsa, so if we don’t loiter we can be there by dark.”

Wordlessly, Jensen reached for Jared’s hand, and then turned and started to walk. The scrub was encroaching into the cracked and pot-holed road, and the sun soon caused their shirts to stick to their backs from sweat. They had no water bottle with them, and consequently they didn’t speak, electing instead to wrap cloth around their faces to prevent the dust from irritating them any more than it had to.

They were making good progress despite the heat and the uneven road surface when they first saw the cloud of dust that was kicked up in the distance, heralding the approach of a vehicle from the Tulsa direction. They speeded up a little, thinking that it could be Chad returning for them, and hurried to meet up with whoever it was, in the hopes that they might be rescued from their long trek.

As the vehicle drew closer, it became evident that it wasn’t Chad, and in fact it was a type of ATV that was completely unfamiliar to both of them. It was white and gold, and bore the emblem of the Fellowship of the Divine Light on the hood, and, like Chad’s vehicle, it ran on caterpillar tracks rather than wheels alone. It was almost upon them when they suddenly realized that it was not going to stop, and indeed it accelerated, bearing down on them at high velocity.

Jensen yelled a warning as he dived to the side to avoid being hit, but Jared, cool under fire, remained firmly planted in the center of the road, hauled the bazooka around from where it hung on his back and fired. The projectile blasted a hole in the windshield and then into the driver of the vehicle, which immediately slowed to a stop.

Both men ran up to take a look at the person who was still sitting in the driver’s seat, only now with a huge hole in his chest. As they approached, two figures emerged from behind the dead driver, and with a sick thrill Jensen recognized Danneel, the woman who had posed as his wife, along with Jeff, the man who had been the foreman at the trucking company where he had worked, and who had callously condemned him to remain out in the Desolation overnight back when he was Eric, and innocent of his history.

There was no time to take in anything further before he found himself fighting for his life. He heard Danneel scream, “Kill them both, Jeff,” to her companion, and then the fight was on. He had no time to pull out his gun before he was attacked by someone who knew their way around a street brawl, and who seemed to be intent on knocking his head clean off his shoulders with a brutal fly kick. He lost his balance and sprawled backwards into the dirty scrub beside the road, fumbling for his gun as he fell. To one side, he could see that Jared’s gun had been knocked out of his hand and Danneel was raising hers, about to shoot him. He didn’t even think about the man called Jeff, who was about to do the same to him. He pointed his weapon in Danneel’s general direction and squeezed off a shot without really stopping to take aim.

As luck would have it, the bullet caught her in the throat, knocking her backwards just as she fired at Jared, and causing the shot to go wide. That was enough to save Jared’s life. The bullet hit him in the shoulder rather than the heart where she’d been aiming.

Jeff, momentarily distracted, stumbled as he kicked out at Jensen’s head and caught him only a glancing blow. Shaking his head to clear it, Jensen stumbled to his feet and made to turn, as Jeff raised his gun to shoot him.

The shot that rang out deafened him, and he wondered why there was no pain. Slowly, he raised his eyes and saw Jeff gradually crumple to his knees before pitching forward into a tamarisk that was growing at the side of the road. Jared slowly lowered his gun and Jensen ran towards him to put his arms around him.

“You saved me,” his voice was husky, and for a moment he clung to Jared without any care for the man’s wounded shoulder.

“Got you back,” muttered Jared and promptly passed out.

Jensen was swift to move, ripping a strip from Danneel’s white cotton shirt to bind Jared’s shoulder. Once he’d dressed it and made him as comfortable as he could, temporarily, he turned to the vehicle itself. The dead man behind the wheel was gigantic, with a bald head and a bristling moustache. Gritting his teeth, Jensen hauled the carcass out of the driver’s seat and onto the road and then set about knocking the glass of the ruined windshield out, in order to enable decent visibility. There was a case of water bottles behind the driver’s seat and he drank his fill, then went to give Jared some.

Jared was just regaining consciousness and accepted the water with a croaked ‘thank you.’ It took them a minute or two, but soon Jared was settled into the ATV in the passenger’s seat, and Jensen was setting it in motion. The motor had never stopped running, and it moved easily off the road, incidentally traveling over Jeff’s body on its way to turn around.

  
  


_The Light is to be honored and sought at all times, never to be sacrificed for the comfort of bodily desire._

It wasn’t long before they were rolling into Tulsa, and found that they had just missed the battle completely. As Richard tended to Jared’s injury, extracting the bullet and cleaning the wound, Jensen passed his precious backpack over to Misha and his two assistants, a weird but competent pair whose names were Travis and AJ, and who seemed to have some telepathic link, because they didn’t ever appear to speak, but they cackled almost constantly as they carried out Misha’s instructions.

The information was soon loaded onto the mainframe, and Misha left it in AJ’s capable hands as he and Jensen joined the rest of the rebels, just in time to hear Richard as he announced that they were ready to take the battle to Dallas itself.

“Most of their fighters are dead. We beat them hands down. I think it’s time to get over there and chase out the vermin.” There was a cheer from the amassed audience. It seemed that everyone was ready to invade Dallas, and Jim, the man who’d loaned Jared the hand bazooka, stepped forward to discuss strategy with Richard. Misha had begun stropping the sword of his ancestors on a whetstone, but didn’t turn down a gun when it was offered to him.

They were winding up their preparations for their departure when Travis sidled into the room and whispered something to Misha, who looked grim. As Travis left again, Misha cleared his throat. “Richard, we need to go now. Mike just called in from Old Dallas. The Guardians are flooding the sewers. Some jerk whose name is Murray has barricaded the exit, and they’re going to drown in infected water if we don’t hurry.”

The exodus was fast and efficient. Jared tagged along with Jensen despite his protests, and the bulk of the army was soon on the road, speeding towards Old Dallas. Richard and Misha had beckoned to Jensen. “Come on. We’ll take the dart. We can’t afford a four hour drive.” Puzzled, the pair of them followed Richard as he led them up a flight of stairs and into a loft that contained a sleek, silvery craft that really did resemble a dart.

Once they were seated, Misha engaged the engine and the little craft took off like a rocket, emerging from the open window and out through the bubble that protected Tulsa from contamination, flying high enough that everything below looked like children’s toys. They were arrowing towards their goal when Richard turned to the two men sitting behind and said, “What do you know? It works!”

“What do you mean, it works?” Jared sounded a little disconcerted.

“Well, we’ve never actually taken it out before. Misha only finished putting it together after you guys left for Mars.” The merry smile on Richard’s face confirmed Jensen’s earlier suspicions that he was just a little deranged, and he felt his stomach flip. He made himself a solemn vow that if he survived this, he was going to stay safely on the ground from then on, excepting possible forays in Jared’s spaceship. Casting a sideways glance at the white-faced Jared who was beside him, he concluded that his partner was making a similar vow.

Dropping the dart down into Old Dallas, in the general area where the secret exit from the sewers was located, the four of them crept through the abandoned streets to find and open the way for their friends to escape. Jared was the one who first saw Chad, along with a tall, saturnine blond who Jensen immediately recognized as Mark Pellegrino, the Right Hand of the Divine’s second-in-command.

“Looks like your buddy has been keeping bad company,” growled Jensen. He quickly explained who Pellegrino was, and watched Jared’s face cloud over with anger.

“Gonna go get the truth from him,” he announced, and before Jensen could protest, Jared began to walk forward into Chad’s line of sight. Jensen, still concealed, could only watch and listen as he heard Jared yell Chad’s name.

“What the fuck, Chad?” he bellowed. “You left us on the road for those assassins to find.”

“Well, hey, Jay.” Chad’s voice sounded jovial, as if he were greeting Jared at a party. “I see you got away. Too bad that pretty gay kid didn’t make it. Pellegrino here would’ve enjoyed re-educating him a little up close and personal, if you get my drift.”

“You fucking betrayed us!” Jared was furious, but Chad burst into mocking applause.

“Give that man a prize for observation,” he said. “What shall it be? The cement bicycle or a meet and greet with the head Guardian? I know! Maybe you’d like a swim.”

Pellegrino had stood back, grinning, but now he stepped forward, and his arms, which had appeared normal, suddenly seemed to stretch, grabbing hold of Jared by the shoulder and digging into the site of the bullet wound so that Jared visibly turned green. Jensen shook off the shock of seeing one of the leaders of the Colony that had so vilified those affected by the radiation revealed as a mutant himself. He fumbled for his gun, but it was not in the back of his jeans where he had stashed it, and his fingers came up empty. The distance was way too far for him to use a throwing knife without endangering Jared, but he suddenly remembered the blowpipe that Traci had given him. Reaching into his boot, he pulled it out and put it to his lips, blowing the way Traci had shown them.

The first dart flew harmlessly wide. Jensen yelled and ran forward, trying again. This time, he hit Pellegrino in the forehead, and the tall man released Jared to put his hands up to his face. Chad’s eyes widened and he turned around to watch as Pellegrino fell to the floor and began to seize.

“Fucking traitor,” growled Jared and punched him.

“Don’t be like that, Jay. You know I love you really... They made me...” Chad got no further. Misha, who had crept silently around behind him, lopped off his head with a single stroke of his sword.

“Thus perish all evil doers,” he bellowed. Jensen didn’t stay to applaud. He raced in through the rubble that littered the floor of the dilapidated building to find the secret room and remove the weights that had been placed over the hatchway allowing first Mike, then Tom, followed by several other mutants, to climb out of the tunnel.

“You took your time,” growled Tom. “There’s a few who have been infected with the contamination in the water. They’re still down there.” He shuddered. “Light, it was horrible! So many of them drowned.”

“It’s too late for the infected ones,” said Richard, who had emerged from where he’d been communicating with Jim, who was still quite a long way from Dallas. He shook his head sadly. “We’ve never been able to save anyone that was exposed to the untreated water for longer than a couple of minutes.”

“We need to get into Dallas proper.” Jensen was focusing on what they still needed to do. He’d think about the dead later, but right now, in his pocket, he had a bottle that he knew would make all the difference to the world as they knew it. “How are we going to get inside the dome?”

“I guess we drive up in Chad’s car and then use our charm and possibly some gentle persuasion,” said Misha, fondling the blade of his sword as he wiped the blood off of it onto Pellegrino’s shirt.

“I like your style.” Richard nodded. “Okay. Let’s go.”

  
  


_Do not question. The Light tells of how the world truly is, not of how we would like it to be. Obedience is favorable to the Light._

The four of them made for Chad’s car, and Jensen, used to the roads in this area, got behind the wheel. It seemed as if a hundred years had passed since he’d driven out through Old Dallas the morning when it had all begun. So much had happened since then that it felt as though he was now a different person - in fact, if he looked at things logically, he actually was a different person. Danneel was dead. Jared was his lover, and he was on the home stretch on his way to save the world. Eric Brady would never have been able to do that, he reflected.

The ride through Old Dallas to the security check in was very brief. Nobody spoke, each of them busy with their own thoughts. The mutants had decided to find a less noticeable way into the dome, and one of them, a handsome albino named James, said that he knew a way in through the drainage sluice gates for the river Trinity. He felt that there would be little risk, since the river was low in late summer.

Approaching the main gate, Jensen watched as the door to the security booth opened and a Guardian emerged. He wound down the window, and as the man bent to check his non-existent credentials, Richard shot him. He hopped out of the car and disappeared into the booth. A moment later, the gate into the city rolled open.

“Welcome to the Lone Star Colony. Walk in the Light,” said Richard as he returned to his seat beside Misha, and the car pulled forward to enter Dallas.

  
  


_We aspire to become one with the Light. Shun the needs of the flesh and embrace your higher purpose._

Jensen made straight for the temple, knowing that was the building that housed the offices of the Guardians, as well as the water distribution plant, and that there would be the best place to start. The hour was approaching dusk, and there would soon be the call for the Prayer to the Right Hand Path as the sun set.

The temple was glowing, the late afternoon sunlight captured by the prisms on the temple’s minarets and reflected down to bathe the white limestone in rainbow colors. There were penitents kneeling on the steps as they approached, but they scrambled away with cries of alarm as Jensen drove the car straight up the steps and into the entrance to the temple.

As the abused car came to a grinding halt at last, half in and half out of the doorway, a number of Guardians converged on the little band, tasers at the ready. They never got the opportunity to use them. Jensen had found Chad’s semi-automatic in his car, and all four of them were armed. It was Misha who began firing, but they all joined in, happy to be taking action, and it wasn’t long before they were able to advance into the temple’s depths, passing the confessionals and going beyond to where the offices and the machinery that kept the temple running were located.

Misha led the charge, scimitar drawn and voice raised in a battle cry in a language that was definitely not English. Jensen and Jared looked at each other in disbelief and then shrugged, following behind. Richard brought up the rear, carefully checking closed doors to ensure that no dangers lurked to take them by surprise.

Somewhere in the distance they heard rushing water, and just as they reached the stairs that would take them up to the next level, it began gushing along the corridor. The stench of it was truly appalling, and Jensen realized that it was untreated, straight from the river. Yelling for Richard to hurry, he shoved Jared up the stairs, trying to get high enough that the water would not touch them, and then turned to watch as the flood of contamination swirled past, a couple of feet below where the four of them stood.

“I already had a bath this morning,” observed Richard, as they resumed their upward march. As they reached the top of the stairs, gunfire made them pause. Someone was shooting at them, and as Misha risked a peep over the top of the stairwell, a bullet sang past, parting his hair. Misha cried out, dropping his weapon to clap his hands to his head, and when Jensen went to make sure he was okay, he realized that the bullet had left Misha with a grazed scalp. It seemed that it had also given him a very bad attitude, since he was now sitting swearing fluently as he recovered his weapons.

“We’re trapped,” hissed Richard.

Jared gestured for silence and took out his blowpipe again. Jensen, realizing what his plan was, reached for his as well, and the two of them sat on the stairs to await what befell. “Whoever it is that’s shooting doesn’t know how many of us there are, and might think that Misha was killed,” whispered Jensen. “Wait and see if they come to investigate.”

The others nodded agreement, and they waited. In the room above, they could hear feet moving around, and a voice sounded, loud in the silence, announcing that the sewers had been purged and asking for further instructions.

“What’s going on in the city?” Jensen tried not to gasp as he heard the distinctive voice. He had heard it many times on the newscasts, exhorting people to be good citizens and follow the Light. He knew that it belonged to the Right Hand of the Divine, Mark Sheppard.

There was no reply from the communicator, and he could hear Sheppard cursing under his breath. “Morons, the lot of them!”

They waited. Finally, footsteps approached the stairs, and a voice muttered, “I suppose I’d better deal with you sorry lot. What are you? Freaks or merely deconditioned? It doesn’t matter, you know. You can’t win.”

He peered briefly over the edge of the stairwell, and Jared shot a dart which narrowly missed him as he hastily drew back. They heard him snicker. “Well, well! Eric Brady, or should I say Jensen Ackles? How foolish of you to come back here. We’ll have a lot of fun re-educating you.”

Jensen didn’t respond but merely crept a little higher up the stairs, blowpipe at the ready. Richard, on the other hand, was not inclined to patience. He reached his hand up over the edge of the stairwell and fired blindly, snickering when there was the sound of glass breaking, followed by another curse from Sheppard.

“Look, you lot, you know you can’t win. Why don’t you just stop with all the malarkey and come out?” Sheppard had stepped closer, and his voice sounded as though he were right at the edge of the stairwell. It was all or nothing. Jensen made up his mind. He’d brought them so far, and if they were to win the day and free the Earth from the contamination that kept everyone so downtrodden, someone needed to make a move. Gritting his teeth, he tossed his gun over the edge into the room.

“Okay, Sheppard, you win. Don’t shoot, I’m coming out.” Jared looked horrified for a moment, but then nodded as Jensen rose to his feet and emerged to where Sheppard was standing with a smirk on his face, his gun raised ready to blast him if he needed to. As Jensen stepped away from the stairwell and into the room, Sheppard turned to cover him, and Jared rose to his feet, blowpipe at his lips, and spat. This time there was no mistake, his aim was true, and the little black projectile flew to embed itself in the back of Sheppard’s neck.

Jensen, anticipating problems, dropped to the floor as Sheppard fired his gun. The bullet missed him and ricocheted off the metal cabinet behind him, causing it to hit the bank of computers at the far end of the room. The consequences were disastrous.

Sparks fizzed and crackled, and thick, oily smoke began to leak from the stricken machine. There was a sudden, ear splitting whine, and then silence as the entire unit went dead. Sheppard had spun around, horrified at the mess, but as Jensen watched, his face slowly became suffused with blood as the poison from Jared’s dart took effect. Dark red foam began oozing from his nose and mouth as Sheppard slowly crumpled to the ground.

Misha was next out of the stairwell. His eyes darted around as he attempted to locate a way to drain the water from the temple complex and re-open the way out. Richard was next, and Jared, bringing up the rear, went straight over to Jensen and smacked him on the back of his head.

“Don’t you ever scare me like that again!” he yelled, face pale. Then he pulled Jensen in against him and kissed him as if his life depended on it. Jensen gave a little moan and allowed Jared to have his way, sliding his arms around him and clinging to him.

“I love you, too,” he whispered, and moved in for another kiss.

While Misha fought to restore one of the computers to action, Richard had found the door that led to the water maintenance plant. It was locked, but that didn’t stop him. He put his pistol next to the lock and blasted it, then kicked the door open. Jensen and Jared crowded behind him as they moved through and into the water purification area.

Jensen knew that the water was diverted from the Trinity into the plant, and that any excess was fed back into the river. Tracing the pipes through to the discharge into the river, he held his breath and emptied half of his bottle into it. Turning to go back to the intake lock, he carefully poured the rest into that side.

The purification of the soil would take a little longer, but they were on their way.

  
  


_The Light is the flame that burns in the heart of man, and in the core of every star. It is life and the giver of life, and so knowledge of the Light is also the knowledge of death._

The clean-up took far longer than the actual battle for the temple had done. It was later, much later, after they had succeeding in draining the temple and rounded up the few remaining Guardians, that Jensen had been able to take a break and go find Jared.

Jared had finally given in to exhaustion and pain from his damaged shoulder. He had been cleaned and dosed with antibiotics by Lindberg, and then put to bed in one of the rooms in the temple. Jensen had been with Richard, overseeing the disposal of the dead to the furnace and ensuring that the temple itself had been disinfected following the flood that had been released in order to kill them, and which had decimated the ranks of priesthood and acolyte alike.

Jim and his group had cut through the defenses out in the city like butter, and the population of Lone Star was now somewhat confused. Richard and Jim between them were now working on an announcement to be broadcast across the settlement, congratulating them on achieving their aim of reclaiming the Earth and inviting them all to celebrate their achievement the following day.

Jensen felt numb with exhaustion. He was filthy with sweat, dirt and blood from the minor cuts and scratches he’d received during the invasion, and it seemed to him as if it had been years since he and Jared had landed at the station outside Oklahoma City.

He stumbled into the set of rooms where Jared had been taken, and straight into the refresher, discarding his filthy clothing as he went. Once inside the cubicle, he fumbled for the button that would start the cleanser and set the vibrations going that would shake loose all the dirt and detritus that covered him. He froze in shock when a deluge of warm water hit him. He had never experienced a shower before, and it took a moment or two for him to relax and realize that this must be a special privilege enjoyed only by the Guardians. Once he’d finally adjusted to the concept and understood what was happening, he began to apply the cleansing foam that was sprayed on him, and enjoyed the experience of getting wet all over.

Clean at last, and far too exhausted to be outraged by the way the Guardians had been given such a wasteful gift, he allowed the warm air of the final cycle to dry him and stepped out of the cubicle feeling ready to crash. It didn’t take him long to locate Jared, who lay spread-eagled over the sleeping surface, dead to the world. Flopping down to join him, Jensen snuggled up against him, and called out for the lamp to turn off. Blessed darkness enfolded him, and his consciousness fled into sleep.

He awoke gradually, aware at first only of a tickling, wet heat at his groin. He moaned and stretched, arching upwards to chase the feeling, and it intensified, drawing him up, sucking the very core of him into spun bliss. As he became more awake, he began to realize that there was a steady suction around his cock, and the image of Mike and Tom as he’d first seen them bloomed in his mind. He opened his eyes, rubbed the sleep from them and gazed down at Jared, who was curled between his thighs, avidly suckling on his dick.

The visual of Jared’s lips stretched around him was enough, and he felt the surge of feelings burst through him, intense and sweet as he discharged his seed into Jared’s mouth with a cry.

  
  


Jared continued to suck until every trace was gone, tongue swirling around the head of his cock as if it were a delicacy. When Jensen finally pushed at him to get him to stop for a moment, Jared gave him a wide grin and slithered up to lie half on top of him and capture his lips in a long, careful kiss. “Good morning,” he said at last. “At least, I think it’s morning.”

Jensen fumbled for his PAD, then remembered it was lying on the floor with his dirty clothes outside the refresher. His hand hit the activator for the viewscreen that was at the foot of the bed, and the screen flickered on, displaying the time as just after the eleventh hour and approaching the hour for the Prayer of Devotion to the Light.

Rolling back towards Jared, he turned his face up for more kisses and slid an exploratory hand down over Jared’s abs towards his still needy erection. Hands, mouths, bodies were suddenly pressed together. All at once, Jensen found himself caught in a tight embrace, and promptly wrapped his legs around Jared's waist. They ground against each other, and Jared's hands fumbled to find and caress, seeking entrance to his core. There was no finesse to what they were doing. They snatched and tore at each other as they swallowed moans, nipping and biting in their need to get closer, to have more of each other, now.

Jared kissed like it was the last time he would ever do it, two hands cupping Jensen's face, holding it at just the right angle to best plunder his tender mouth. It seemed to Jensen, as Jared rolled him back against the pillows and kissed him breathless, that Jared owned him, and that he was at last going to find out what it meant to be possessed. Jared’s mouth tasted of Jensen’s come, and his lips slid against Jensen’s, sending shivers through him, sweet sensations that were curling somewhere down low in his belly. All he could do was hang onto Jared and let him lead, open to anything his lover chose to do as long as it was now.

Jared reached down to find his cock, already rising to attention again as he was gripped and stroked. Jensen moaned Jared’s name and sank his teeth into the meat of his shoulder. Jared, hard already, gasped as his cock slid along Jensen’s thigh, hips already setting their own rhythm, as they rubbed against him. Jensen bit into Jared’s full lower lip and shivered at the resulting buck against him.

He could feel Jared groping for something and finally grabbing a tube from the night stand. Jared whimpered, popped the top on the tube with shaking hands and promptly succeeded in spilling the contents everywhere as he coated his fingers.

“Do it,” Jensen was right there with him, body trembling with need, but not knowing exactly what he was yearning for. Obviously sex would be different than it had been with his wife, and he was certain there was more than he’d experienced with Jared so far, but he was a bit frightened to imagine what that might be.

Jared murmured, "Relax, love. I've got you. Gonna make you feel better than you ever dreamed."

When Jared’s slick finger touched the secret, forbidden place behind his balls, Jensen gasped. He’d been taught his whole life that no-one should touch him there, and he should only do so for hygiene purposes. He’d have never dreamed that anyone would want to do that to him. But the sensation was not unpleasant, and he trusted Jared, so he spread his legs a bit to allow him more access.

“That’s right,” Jared’s finger circled his entrance a few times before slowly sliding in. “You’re doing so good. I know it’s weird, but I promise it’ll be worth it.”

Soon Jared’s finger was pumping steadily in and out of his body. Jensen wasn’t quite sure what to think until Jared’s questing finger touched a spot deep inside him that sent a jolt of pleasure through his system. His cock had been interested before, but now he was leaking with need. He found himself begging for more.

Jared smiled encouragingly at him and added another finger. The stretch burned slightly, but then Jared was hitting that spot deep within him and Jensen found himself grinding back against each thrust of Jared’s fingers. Another finger increased the stretch and burn, but Jensen scarcely felt the discomfort as the pleasure zinged through him.

Jared's face was buried in the hollow between Jensen’s neck and shoulder, mouth sucking the tender skin there as his fingers probed. Jensen’s chest was slick with sweat, and he bit his lip, riding out the burn, wanting Jared to hurry up and show him just what sex should be like.

"Light, Jared! Do it! I don't want to wait any longer." He gripped Jared's cock and tried to pull him around.

Jared uttered a little snort of laughter. "Slow down, love. Don't wanna hurt you."

As Jensen tugged on him, doing his best to leave him in no doubt as to what his desire was, Jared moved around at last, pulling out his fingers. Jared urged Jensen to roll over onto his belly, but Jensen resisted, “I want to see you.”

“It’s easier this way, especially your first time,” responded Jared. “And the last thing I want to do is hurt you.”

“I don’t care,” Jensen insisted. “I’m not afraid of a little pain. I’m sure you’ll make it worth it in the end.”

“Okay,” Jared agreed. “But tell me if it hurts or if you want me to stop for any reason.”

“Just get on with it. I don’t want to wait anymore.”

Finally, Jared slicked his cock with the slippery gel and slid it in where his fingers had been. A moment of searing pain followed by another sweet jolt of pleasure had Jensen sobbing and arching upwards, the motion of his hips accompanied by the little whimpering sounds he couldn’t seem to stop making.

They moved together, Jared filling Jensen, sliding in and out as he found a rhythm and brushing that bundle of nerves deep inside Jensen. Their eyes locked together, and Jared looked so fierce, so possessive, that Jensen felt butterflies low in his gut. Jared’s expression was intense, and Jensen saw his teeth bite into his kiss-plumped lower lip as he moved, faster now, hips gaining speed.

Jensen had never felt anything so intensely in his life. He finally understood why everyone had always made such a big deal about sex. To him, sex had always been a chore, another box to tick on his list of husbandly duties. But now, with Jared, it was magnificent, incredible, and so much more than just sex.

The pleasure spiked and Jensen felt as if he were going to come apart at the seams. He shoved a hand down between them to take hold of his cock, knowing that he was going to completely lose it. Recognizing his need, Jared fumbled after him, closing his fist around Jensen’s to squeeze and stroke along with him.

“Gonna come for me?” The words were ground out, and Jared’s voice was whisky and honey, harsh and breathy. Jensen didn’t answer, because he couldn’t. He was fighting to breathe, to be able to bear the pleasure that was filling his senses, locking up bone and muscle and stealing his breath. He cried out as he came, shuddering and blissful, body locking up around Jared until it was squeezing him so tight he had no choice but to follow.

They were still lying in a loose embrace, trying their best to recover and breathe again, when the viewscreen at the foot of the bed flickered to life and the face of the Divine’s second, Christopher Heyerdahl appeared.

“Sheppard, you’re late with your report.” The voice was impatient, and Jensen sat up, an icy little chill running down his spine as he recognized the face of the Divine’s second. His memories of the man from before he left Mars the first time were decidedly unpleasant.

“I guess you’ll just have to write it yourself,” said Jensen. “Sheppard’s no longer in charge, and I don’t feel like it.”

There was a gasp from Heyerdahl, and then, “Who are you?” He didn’t appear to recognize Jensen, and he wondered how many young men he had tortured to so easily forget.

“Does it matter?” Jensen smirked, and reached to take hold of Jared’s hand. “All you need to know is that Sheppard and his goons are no longer holding the Earth for ransom, and the contamination you used to keep it under your control is gone as well. The Balanced Earth is in control, and the world is free again.”

Heyerdahl listened, his face steadily growing redder and redder until it achieved an almost purple hue. He appeared to have been struck speechless, and the Divine himself, Mark Rolston, crowded onto the screen to peer at Jensen. He hissed.

“Ackles.”

Heyerdahl turned to stare at him, recognition sparking on his face. “We neutralized him. It can’t be.”

“It’s Ackles. I know about him from the reports that have been coming from Lone Star. He’s deviant.” Rolston sounded angry. “Abomination! I told them to eradicate him.”

“Looks like they didn’t quite manage it.” Jared joined Jensen, slipping a proprietary arm around his shoulder. “Guess this is where Jensen tells you that you’ve failed, and that the only Abomination is the way you’ve manipulated the people here.”

They didn’t wait for a reply from either of the Guardians. Jensen switched off the screen and turned back to kiss Jared again. Things might not be completely resolved yet, and there would be transitions that might take some time to implement, but for now, he had Jared and time to learn about love. He’d earned it.

 

### Epilogue

  


_The Earth is suffering, but the Warrior of the Light will come when the need is greatest, and he will purge her, and she will be fruitful once more._

It was ten years after the cleansing of the temple. The air was full of moisture, and bees buzzed happily in the lavender bed that was a part of the new garden in the center of Dallas. The newly elected legislature had gathered to unveil a statue that would commemorate the overthrow of the Guardians of the Fellowship of the Divine Light.

Richard had been elected president with a 92% majority. No one had run against him, although some people put forward their friends and enemies for the position. There was never any doubt who should be their leader as they worked to cleanse their world from the taint caused by humanity and their wars. Richard and Misha worked tirelessly to educate everyone about the consequences of not taking care of the Earth. Jensen sometimes thought that if the old regime had not left such a bad taste of religion in everyone’s senses, Misha might create a whole new religion devoted to worshiping Mother Nature. But, you never know, Misha might still pull it off.

In addition to Richard and Misha, the legislature was made up of prominent members of the old rebel organization, Citizens for the Balanced Earth. Many of them were familiar to Jensen, like Tom, Mike, Jim, and Chris and Steve although they’d had to go through and hand count the ballots as people apparently couldn’t decide if they should hold two seats or one. They ended up with two votes, but only one actual chair.

Richard was working hard to make sure that as much of the conditioning that the old Lone Star Colony had perpetrated as possible was undone. The last thing he wanted was for the Balanced Earth Society to rule as conquerors. But most of the old citizens of the Lone Star Colony had absolutely no idea what freedom was or how it had been lacking. Oddly enough, the ones born and raised in the regime were harder to teach than the re-educated. With the latter, it was only a matter of stopping the conditioning treatments and finding some key memory that served as a trigger to eventually unravel the rest, but those who had been born into Lone Star had never known anything but the rules that the Guardians had set. Mike and Tom had been instrumental in setting up counseling centers and training therapists who were helping people to find the key to unlock their emotions.

Most of the time, they were able to explain how the old regime had been tyrannical, but the rank and file citizens couldn’t imagine ruling themselves. They all had the right to vote, of course, but most just didn’t do so. They were innately sure that others knew better than themselves who should lead them. None of them had yet run for any public office. Jensen himself worked with the worst of these cases, some of whom were still disgusted by the “real food” Jensen himself enjoyed the most about life in the Balanced Earth Colony - or at least most after his life as Jared’s partner. Even now that the Colony was able to grow enough food to support itself, Jensen made sure they kept enough replicators functioning to feed those who wanted the old food.

Jensen pulled his thoughts back from his wool-gathering and to the ceremony at hand. Richard was talking about Matt and their childhood together before Richard had stowed away on a supply ship back to Earth. He spoke of the formation of the Citizens for the Balanced Earth and their vow to free humanity from the tyranny of the Fellowship of Divine Light. And then it was Jensen’s turn to speak.

“Just over ten years ago, I broke down on the side of the road, and my life changed forever,” Jensen started, glancing at Jared who smiled back at him reassuringly. “That moment led to meeting the love of my life, learning who I was, who I had been, and a wild adventure through space to recover the seeds that purified our water supplies and began the process of reclaiming our soil.

“If I had known while I was running from the Guardians that that moment would lead to a public speaking engagement, I think I would have been at the head of the line for re-education.” The laughter from the crowd helped settle Jensen’s nerves further, and he hoped his joke was as well received by the broadcast audience.

“But, even though I didn’t remember it then, my story started a long time before that. My story started on Mars, where two innocent young people fell in love. A love for which the penalty turned out to be death, and the very possibility of which was scrubbed from all the histories. For I fell in love with another boy.

“Matt and I fell in love almost from the moment we met. There was a spark I’d never felt with anyone else, and we didn’t know what to do with it. Something just clicked, and we wanted to spend all of our time together. I didn’t think anything of it, we were just fast friends immediately. I don’t think Matt realized what was happening either. Richard didn’t approve, of course …” More laughter from the crowd spurred him on.

“Richard was afraid that our friendship would get in the way of the dream he and Matt had, interfere with their vision, which was to free humanity and reclaim the Earth from which we had come. He’s already told you all about how they plotted to overthrow the Fellowship, and how that had to begin on Earth. Even as damaged as Earth was, they knew that, unlike Mars, life could exist Outside the domes. That a society could live and sustain itself Outside the confines of the colonies. That we could learn what the Guardians used to control us.

“So Richard came to Earth and eventually, between them, they discovered the secret of how the Guardians were using the water supply to control the people. And Matt discovered how the Guardians cleansed the water and rationed it out to the compliant, conditioned citizens. But then I came into the picture, and Richard was afraid that Matt would jeopardize all they had accomplished because of me. And he was almost right.” Jensen fought back the tears as he remembered the sacrifice that Matt had made. He closed his eyes momentarily as he heard Matt’s screams all over again.

“Matt never told me about the resistance. I was so young; we were both so young. I think he was about to tell me when he pulled me into that hidden alcove in the secret garden in the temple on Mars. But instead, he kissed me. I think it surprised him as much as me. But before I even had the chance to return the kiss, priests and Guardians were everywhere, dragging us apart and into the depths below the basement of the temple. There they interrogated us, tortured us, and eventually murdered Matt. Seventeen days before his nineteenth birthday, they executed him.” Jensen had to stop and take a few deep breaths before he could continue.

“I don’t know how Matt knew that I wouldn’t be killed right along with him. But thankfully, he was right. I was re-educated, marked for life,’ Jensen proudly displayed the pink triangle tattooed on his left wrist, “and shipped off to Earth to haul freight for them, to be expendable, and above all, to be someone other than the man I was meant to be.

“You all hail me and Jared as heroes, but Matt was the real hero. Matt discovered the cure for the water supply. Matt found the soil samples and the research the Fellowship scientists had done. Matt organized his schoolfellows to research ways to remove the radiation and bacteria that made it impossible to grow anything in our soil as a ‘theoretical’ exercise, and then saved the results of that research for me to find. Matt left the clues for me to find, so we could eventually bring those cures back here, to Earth. Matt is the reason we could break away from the tyranny imposed by the water rations and the hostile soil. Matt is the reason we are free today.

“That’s why I’m proud to dedicate the Matthew Cohen Memorial Park and to unveil his statue.” Jensen pulled the canvas from the limestone statue, tugging a bit when it snagged on his arm. There was Matt, fully life-sized and much as Jensen remembered him. He was seated at a desk writing in a book that looked much like the journal Jensen and Jared had found on Mars that detailed how to use the plants and bugs he’d left to clean and reinvigorate the damaged soil on Earth. Jensen had to blink back tears before he could continue.

“But Richard and Matt’s vision is not yet complete. We have freed the Colony on Earth and are gradually recovering the ruined land. We are few in number, but as we grow, we have the means to cleanse the soil and support ourselves on our mother planet. But those on Mars, they are still under the rule of a tyrannical regime. We need to show them what freedom looks like, give them the option to live under a government that is for the people and by the people.

“I don’t know yet what that will entail. Working with those here on Earth who were born and raised under that regime has shown me that it won’t be easy. But Matt’s legacy demands that we work towards that end. Richard and Matt’s vision will not be fully realized until all of humanity is free.”

The reception following the unveiling lasted well into the night. Jensen and Jared stayed for a while, but begged off after the third or fourth round of toasting their success. Not only were they rather embarrassed by all the - unwarranted, they felt - attention, but they had work to do. Richard and Misha and the others were getting Earth under control, but Jensen and Jared were determined to save Mars as well. That wouldn’t be easy, especially since the Divine and his group of thugs on Mars were now on alert, most likely preparing while everyone on Earth was busy getting the planet habitable again. They would need a really good plan.

~fin~

**Author's Note:**

> This time last year, [](http://spoonlessone.livejournal.com/profile)[**spoonlessone**](http://spoonlessone.livejournal.com/) and [](http://candygramme.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://candygramme.livejournal.com/)**candygramme** were visiting together, and we took a trip to Vancouver Island. As we drove through the island to our destination, the tourguide regaled us with the tale of the rabbits that had gotten out of hand on the grounds of the University of Victoria. It seems that the ban on killing them meant that they all had to be trapped and then shipped out to a bunny sanctuary in Texas. That evening, we watched the Schwarzenegger version of Total Recall, and a story was born. The story evolved from the original but it certainly owes a lot to Total Recall, and we figure that those bunnies would've survived, but they'd have been really mad at humanity.
> 
>  
> 
> **Big Thankyous:**
> 
>  
> 
> [](http://spoonlessone.livejournal.com/profile)[ **spoonlessone**](http://spoonlessone.livejournal.com/) has been the beta for [](http://candygramme.livejournal.com/profile)[**candygramme**](http://candygramme.livejournal.com/) for years now, and an excellent beta she is too, but we have recently started to collaborate, and that has meant finding a new beta. Fortunately a wonderfully detail oriented person stepped in. Our heartfelt gratitude goes to [](http://laurathelurker.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://laurathelurker.livejournal.com/)**laurathelurker** , who may lurk, but who does fine, fine beta work.
> 
> Thank you to [](http://evian-fork.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://evian-fork.livejournal.com/)**evian_fork** , too, who stepped in when our original artist was snowed under by real life and couldn't complete her contribution on time. She produced some amazing stuff for us, and deserves a medal for her speed and talent.
> 
> [](http://wendy.livejournal.com/profile)[ **wendy**](http://wendy.livejournal.com/) and [](http://thehighwaywoman.livejournal.com/profile)[**thehighwaywoman**](http://thehighwaywoman.livejournal.com/) have been running the [](http://spn-j2-bigbang.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://spn-j2-bigbang.livejournal.com/)**spn_j2_bigbang** for long enough that you'd think they'd run screaming from LJ at the thought of yet another one, but no. They give their time to wrestle this huge undertaking into shape, calm us down, soothe us and generally make sure we're able to have a good time with lots of awesome long fics and beautiful artwork. They, too, deserve medals.


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